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I UNITED STATES OP AMEEICA. | 



POPULAR BOOKS 

BY 

"BniCK POMEnOY." 



-ca»- 



I. — SICNSK. 
11. — NONSKNSH. 
III. — HATUUDAY NIOTITS. 

IV. — QOIjD-DUST. 

V. — BttlOK DUST. 



-••»- 



"ThoroTsntlHtyof poninn oxhibitoil by this nnthor has won for 

him IV worUl-wido ro[int;il:iou sis a fact>tii>U!> and a strong 

writvr. One mouunit ioi>U>tii with tho most 

toiiohiiit: pathos, and tho next full of 

fun, frolic, and sarcasm." 



All published unifonn with this volnino, at ^1.50, nnd sent by mall, 
free qf postage, on receipt of price, 

BY 

G. W. CAUIiETON «fc CO., Publishers, 
NoiF York* 




•' I went home with her. She told me all. I could no more. She was a 
feminine Yankee. She wanted stamps."— ^t-e mqe 24. 



^^ "^^ /^- 



BRICK-DUST: 



A REMEDY FOR THE BLUES, AND A SOME- 
THING FOR PEOPLE TO TALK ABOUT. 



M. M. POMEROY, 

[" BRICK* POMEROY,"] 

AITTHOR OP "SENSE," "NONSENSE," SATURDAY NIGHTS," 

" GOIiD-DUST," BTO. 






NEW YORK: 

G. W. Carleton ^ Co., Publishers. 

LONDON: S. LOW, SON & CO. 
M.DCCO.LXXI. 



CONTENTS. 



-C^73- 



CHAPTEB, PAGE 

I. — Out *risr the Garden BOiLma Soap . . 13 

II. — The Goat— a Composition on Him . 21 

III. — "Bkick" and His Penninah! . . . 23 

IV.— Cat Lykics 30 

V. — Riding a Velocipede . . . .33 

VI. — Sailors' Dance-House .... 40 

VII.— A War Tale 53 

VIII. — Race on the Prairie • ... 57 

IX. — Reminiscence op Roxelia . . .69 

X— Ku-Klux! 77 

XI.— Going to the Circus . . . .91 

XII. — Among the Astrologists ... 93 

XIII. — The Result op My Courtship . . 102 

XIV.— The Confiding Widow .... 112 

XV. — To a Bright-Eyed Maiden . . . 119 



viii Contents. 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XVI.— EXPEREETTGE IN BOSTON AT THE 1*EACS 

Banjoree 121 

XVII. — My Widow in the Park . . . .133 

XVIII.— "Paris Club KooMs" .... 141 

XIX.— My First Night at Sparking . . . 163 

XX.— The Girls 173 

XXI. — Struck by the Divine Afflatus . . 174 

XXII.— As A Base Ballist 183 

XXIII.— The Toiler by the Sea . . . .191 

XXIV. — Kissing in Dreams ....". 199 

XXV.— Lake Ross Sewing-Circle . . . 200 

XXVI.— Pretty Waiter-Girl Saloons . . 211 

XXVII.— To A Pretty Little Maid . . .227 

XXVIII. — Puriville Benevolence , . . 229 

XXIX. — ^WHAT I KNOW ABOUT FARMING . . 236 

XXX— "Who's bin Here since Ish bin Gone?" 245 
XXXI. — A Jersey Atonement . . ... 249 





PREFACE. 




IHIS is the cause of it. 



Brick-dust is good to polish— to 
scour knives, and sharpen things. 
It is either " light " or " reddy," as the case may 
be. So will be this book. If you do not like 
it, do not read it. 

If you think you will not like it, do not 
read it. 

If you feel that any of your neighbors will 
think the less of you for reading the random, 



X Preface, 

ad-cap-tandem ideas, thoughts, surmises, sar- 
casms, hints, suggestions, conchisions, observa- 
tions, thinkings, may-bes, or may-not-bes, to be 
found in the following pages, |^ 

Shun danger, and fly, 

Lest brick-dust io your eye, 

or the eye of your neighbor, give you trouble. 

Some will like this book. 

Some will not. 

So of all books — all men — all women — all 
places — all children. 

There is much in the pages of this book peo- 
ple will not understand. 

Much others would not have written. 

Much we shall never ^\Tite again ! 

Just as all of us, in life, at some time, do 
^hat we would do over or again. 

Some will not like this book because it is per- 
Bonal. 



Preface. xi 

Some will like it for the same reason. 

Those who have written better books will 
pity us. 

Those who have written worse ones, we pity ! 

So, between the two, our "brick" is ground 
to dust, and somebody will be the gainer. 

Any kind of a book is better than talking 
about your neighbors, when people talk the most 
about those they know the least of. 

For further particulars, inquire within, where 
will be found pictures of every-day life as they 
come to 

Yours industriously, 

"BEICK" POMEROY. 

Sanctum, IS'Zl. 




BRICK-DUST. 



CHAPTEE I. 




OUT IN THE GARDEN BOILING SOAP. 

HE good old time for boiling soap has 
come again. The robins tell ns so. 
They know all about the matter ; 
and when they tune up with their 
playful notes from tree-tops and fence-stakes, 
then is the time — the golden soap-boiling days 
— when boys or men drive the stakes and fix the 
kettle, set the leach-tub, and prepare the kind- 
ling-wood. 

" Good morning, Mrs. Dinkelson. I told Peter 
to put our soap-kettle out here near yourn, so 



1-1 Out ill the Garden Boiling Soajp, 

'twould be handy in case of accident. How's 
yer lye this morning, Mrs. Dinkelson % " 

" Oh, pui'ty well. I'm glad you fixed yer ket- 
tle over here ; it's more sociabeller - — at least, it 
'pears to me so. How's yer grease \ " 

" My grease is fii'st-rate — better nor the lye, I 
'spect. Did you ever put lime in the bottom of 
your leach ? I told Peter to, but he hadn't got no 
lime, so he just chucked in some sticks and straw 
and old rags and a few egg-shells, all smashed 
up. How much grease you got this spring % " 

"Well, I don't 'zactly know, Mrs. Spiker ; 
there is about as much as we allers has — and 1 
don't know as there is, nuther." 

" I wish you'd jest ster mine, if I don't get 
back in time. I must go and tell Jane not to 
wipe them dishes with the new wipin' cloth ; 
that's for company dishes, and Jane persists in 
doin' it with that are cloth, just because it's new. 
I'm mighty 'feared Jane '11 never be like her 
mother ! " * 



Out in the Garden Boiling Soap. 15 

" I'll stir it ; but hurry back." 

" Well, how was it ? " 

" Oh, she was usin' it, just as I 'spected. Now 
I'll stir while you fix the fire. Ain't it nice to 
have our kettles clus together, so one fire '11 bile 
both on 'era. It saves wood, and we can get 
around out of the smoke more easier." 

" I allers thought it was a great convenience, 
'specially when one has got good neighbors, as 
we have." 

" So do I. Do yoii put ham-rines in your 
grease, Mrs. Dinkelson ? Peter 'n' I both think 
it don't come so quick when there's rines in it. 
Peter's sort of scientific, and 'lows it's the smoke 
or the saltpetre ; but I don't know." 

" I allers keeps the rines, Mrs. Spiker. There's 
so much good grease the other side the rines, it ' 
'^JQ to keep 'em. And our folks is such hogs 
for -ham ! Mrs. Skypey keeps everything, and 
she has nice soap, too." 

" Well, I don't care for the Skj^peys ; I knowed 



10 Out in the Garden Boiling Soap. 

'em when they borrered soap, and never paid it, 
nnther. She's mighty stuck-np now, since her 
husband's bought a horse and buggy. It's a 
good thing everybody ain't proud." 

" That's so, Mrs. Spiker. Now, there's Jinldns. 
lie ain't worth more'n iny old man, but he makes 
b'leve he's got more'n ten tliousand dollars. An' 
I can't bear his wife — nasty stuck-up thing, with 
a boughten petticoat ! " 

" That is so, Mrs. Dinlvelson. An' if there is 
any one thing above another that is despisin', it's 
a boughten petticoat. Better save the money ; 
she'll want it some day." 

" Indeed she will. But Mrs. Boggles just 
knocks Mrs. Jinkins ! She's the most extrava- 
gantest woman I ever did see. Me and Jede- 
diar has often noticed her doin's. Any woman 
that's too good to bile soap is just a nasty stuck- 
up thing ; and you know how it is yerseK, Mrs. 
Spiker. I wouldn't miss soap-bilin' for nothin'. 
It's so sociable to have a real good visit, with no- 



Out in the Garden Boiling Soap. 17 

body to bother us and listen to what we say ! 
And, oh ! have you heard of Deldn Jonesby, and 
what he did to Sally Smiggles ? " 

" La, me ! no. The nasty man ! I allers sus- 
pected it of him. I never knowed any good of 
them Jonesbys, and I know it. What did he 
do ? " 

" Oh, dear ! it's too awful to tell. But I'll just 
tell you ! You see, Sally Smiggles went there to 
do the spring sowin', and one day Mrs. Jonesby 
was down-town, gaddin' about just as she allers 
is, when the Dekin cum hum. He let on he 
didn't know his wife was out ; but I know bet- 
ter, and so do you ! I jist 'spected what was up, 
BO I run in to borrer a little sal'ratus, all in a 
hurry, and they was both in the clothes-press! 
I rushed right in on 'em, but I was a little too 
soon ; they went to fumblin' in the rag-bag. 
^ Oh ! ' said I. * Hello ! ' said he. ' I just run in 
for some sal'ratus,' sez I. ^ It's in the butt'ry,' 
said he. ' What yer doin' in here % ' sez 1. 



18 Out in the Garden Boiling Soap, 

' nmitin' some linin for Miss Smiggles,' said he. 
Huntiri) linen ! Yes, I guess it was ! An' lie 
looked jest as innercent — ^the deceivin' wretch ! 
I'm so glad I don't b'long to that church ! I'd 
be afraid of him — the wretch ! " 

" And Sally Smiggles was in there with him, 
was she ? I allers mistrusted it in her eye ! " 

" Yes, indeed she was ; and she'd her work in 
her hand, just on purpose to fool me ; but I've 
just been a girl myself, and they can't fool me. 
I'll tell her mother next Sunday, if I see her." 

"Well, the gu4 cum honestly by it. Her 
father used to act just so keerless with me, even 
for a year arter I married Peter. But I knowed 
him. lie used to set on his o^vn door-step every 
night a whittlin', and when I'd go by he'd look 
as sweet, and say, ' Good evenin', Mrs. Spiker ; 
won't you call ? ' and I used to go by every night, 
just to see if he'd do it ! " 

" Oh, goodness ! it's all runnin' over ! Stir it, 
quick ! " 



Out in the Garden Boiling Soap. 19 

" It's that lime ! Skim it ! " 

" Oh, there goes Dr. Buzley ! " 

" Goin' down to see Mrs. Spriggers ag'in. It 
ain't all sickness, and I Imow it. A man never 
stays as long with a sick woman as with a well 
one. He don't stay lomg when he comes to see 
me ! And he hadn't better. I hate these doc- 
tors, who are always makin' examinations of 
good-lookin' women." 

" So do I ; and it's good enough for 'em ! " 

" Have yon and Mrs. Brown made up yet ? " 

"!N"o, we hain't, and I ain't goin' to. It's a 
pity if onr cat can't go over there nights to see 
their cat, without Brown's shootin' a two-barrelled 
gun at him ! Better keep their cat in the 
house ! " 

" That's just what I told Mrs. Kigby." 

" What did she say to that ? " 

" Oh, she acted like a fool, as usual — said 
'twas a pity all the cats wa'n't killed. Just be- 



20 . Out in the Garden Boiling Soap. 

cause she ain't got no husband, she's awful techy 
about these things." 

" Hello, it's bilin' over ag'in ! " 

" It's them ar rines — that's what's the mat- 
ter ! " 

" Them rines, is it ? Then all I've got to say 
is jest this — ^Dern the hogs ! " 

" ' Dern the hogs ! ' is it ? — 'ludin' to me, I 
'spose ! Then you can jest bile yer own soap; 
and h'ist yer kittle out'n here to oust I " 




CHAPTER II. 




THE GOAT. A COMPOSITION ON HIM. 

GOAT is stronger than a pig, and 
gives milk. He looks at you. So 
does the doctor ; but a goat has 
four legs. My goat butted Deacon 
Tillinghast in a bad place, and a little calf 
wouldn't do so. A boy without a father is an 
orphan, and if he hain't got no mother he is two 
oi-phans. The goat don't give so much millc as a 
cow, but more than an ox. I saw an ox at a fair 
one day, and we went in on a family ticket. 
Mother picks geese in the summer, and the goat 
eats grass and jumps on a box. Some folks don't 
like goats, but as for me, give me a mule with a 



22 The Goat. A Comj^osition on Him. 

paint-brusli tail. The goat is a useful animal, 
but don't smell as sweet as nice bear's-oil for the 
hair. If I had too much hair, I would wear a 
wig, as old Captain Peters does. I will sell my 
goat for three dollars, and go to the circus to see 
the elephant, which is larger than five goats. 

Thomas Shine» 





CHAPTER JII. 




" BEICK " AKD HIS PENINNAH ! 

H^^HE couldn't help it ! 
Nor could I ! 

It rained all day, all night, all 
the next day, and all the day be- 
fore — three days ! I was walking from planta- 
tion to town, near Macon, District of Loyalty. I 
think it rained, as usual. I saw her gliding from 
cabin to cabin, from negro house to abode of 
negro, like a baby duck, much on the waddle. 
She carried a little cadias in her one hand, and 
in her other she held high toward the cerulean 
her skirts, and all sich. She was tall — loveli- 
ness on stilts ! I saw her fi^om the afterwards — 



24 ''jBriGh'^'* and his Peniiinah! 

she had black stockings, wide, blue garters, and 
moved like a doctor on a visit to his first patient. 
I hasteaed to overtake her. I slid my um- 
brella over her head. I asked her to excuse me, 
which she did, and we hitched crooks at once. I 
was in my element and mud. The woman was 
white. She was a blushing daughter of New 
England. She was a gay damsel of many sea- 
sons. She was a polisher of Hams. She knew 
much about Hams. She was a sylph-like edu- 
cator of niggeroons. She taught education to 
the ivoryites. She had left the white regions 
and friends of New England, to come South 
and tickle the Hams — the little Hams by day 
and the big Hams by night, as she continued 
her teaching by light-wood fires in dark wood- 
cabins. 

I went home with her. She told me all. I 
could no more. She was a feminine Yankee. 
She wanted stamps. Home was nothing ; she 
was on the make. She had not character suffix 



^^Brich''^ aiid his Peninnah! 25 

cient to teach school in N^ew England. She was 
not handsome enough to go to l^ew Orleans by 
sea, and ride to happiness on an Evening Star, 
so she became a negro schoolist. As a beauty, 
she was not above par, nor much else. As a 
scholarist, she was not brilliant. Smoked glass 
was not needed. As a lover of Hams, she was 
not severe ; but when it came to stamps, she wore 
her prettys all the time. She told me that her 
father's name was Stone. Her name was Penin- 
nah — Peninnah Stone. It was a Bible name ; 
it meant precious Stone. 

Being from home, I was not accountable, so I 
made love to her, and went with her to school. 
She moved among the Hams lilvo a silver tliimble 
in a dripping-pan full of breeches-buttons. She 
wasn't much of a catch, but better than no catch. 
She was one of the stout-minded. Her early 
years were spent in chewing gum, weeding 
onions, pounding stone, and such little amuse- 
ments, incidental to ISTew England, coupled with 
3 



26 ^^Brick^^ and his Peninnah! 

psalm-singing and praying for damnation to rest 
npon all who were sinners. 

Peninnah was a sprightly sylph. She could 
harness an ox, split rails, stick a hog, and do all 
manner of snch music. 

"We loved. It was a matter of profit. Being 
a New Englander, she had no heart. Simply a 
Stone. Harder than a Brick. We wall^ed about 
among the cabins of her lambs. She was chief 
engineer of a nigger-teaching shop, and boss of a 
mammoth carpet-bag. We meandered under the 
black-jacks and honeysuckles. First she'd sling 
her arms about my neck and kiss me, then she'd 
kiss the little lambs — dear little Hams ! Said I : 

"Peninnah, sweet one, why kissest thou the 
little he-thopians ? " 

Then she bent her eyes into me, and said : 

" The more we kiss 'em, the more hair-oil, brass 
rings, photographs, and playthings we sell 'em ! " 

Ah, I see, (^harming Peninnah ! Kiss 'em — 
kiss 'em all around, from cabin to cabin, from 



^^BAgTc''^ and his Peninnah ! 27 

Ham to Ham, from infancy te old age, and sell 
'em gewgaws — for of such is the kingdom of 
ISTew England, and he-thopians are the profit. 

And we sat on a mossy banl?:, watching the lit- 
tle Hams basking in the snn as they wallowed in 
the warmth, and thus braided our love together. 
Said my sweet Peninnah : 

"Oh, Brick, it's nice! Let us wed and be 
happy. I'll support you. I'm a Yankee school- 
ist, not handsome enough to be ornamental, or 
I'd gone farther South. But I'm several on the 
make. I'll make mutton of these lambs, in time. 
There is no need of us at home, so I came here 
to make money. I kiss the little Hams ; I pets 
'em and I caress 'em ; I tell 'em that the good 
Abrum was their saviour ; that he sent me here 
on pm^ose ; that I love 'em so dearly ; that they 
are — oh ! so sweet to me, and that, in a few 
years, each of 'em, male and female, shall be in 
Congress from Massachusetts. And I pats their 
little heads, and I kiss their little lips, and I sell 



28 ^'Brich'*'^ aiid his Peninnah! 

'em primers and readers at ^yq hmidred per cent, 
profit, and I sell 'em ' pm-ty things,' and I fines 
'em for not learning their lessons, and I sells each 
of 'em my photograph for a dollar, and I sells 
each of 'em hlue clay greased for half a dollar a 
box, and I manage to hoax the little Hams out 
of all their stamps, and to make teachin' a big 
business. Ain't I a nice girl, dear, dear, gentle 
Brick ? " 

And she kissed me again and again, till I had 
a link of wool left on my lips, when with a smile 
she pillowed my agile head on her spiral indi- 
cators, and went on : 

" Oh, it's nice to be a he-thopian schoolist ! 
We are from home. "We are on the make. 
There are some teachers here who are good, but 
not sharp. They don't speculate, as we do ; they 
simply teach for their salaries. But they are not 
full Yanlvces — only half-breeds. I can make 
enough here in a year, off and on, to buy a plan- 
tation ; then we'll set up for nabobs ! Let us 



^'Brich " and his Peninnah I 29 

wed ! I'll tea'cli 'em ; you soap 'em. "We'll wed. 
Tou go North as a Sonthem loyalist; I'll go 
IN'orth as an injured female. We'll do the dar- 
keys, then do the soft ones in the North. This 
is a big, business. I'm from ISTew England — on 
the make. Let's unite, and be happy 1 " 

I'm to wed Peninnah. She is a most desirable 
darling. So sweet, so kind, so financial in her 
affections, such a devoted Christian, that I know 
we shall be happy. And we'll be rich. While 
I whine injured loyalty up North, Peninnah will 
skin the Uams here. We'll soon be bond-holders, 
exempt from taxation, and regular New England 
aristocrats. Bring me a little nigger — sweet lit- 
tle Ham ; let us kiss him once for Peninnah ! 




CIIAPTEE lY. 



CAT LYEICS. 




ONFOUND the yowling cats ! 
Why don't they hunt for rats ? 
Or keep as still as bats 
Or moles, out on the flats ? 
At dead of night 
They yowl and fight — 
Till one would think they were a match 
For the father of cats — the old scratch 
They steal all our cream ! 
They burst on our dream, 
As with spitter and sputter 
With yowl and with mutter — 
As out by the gate 
One stops with his mate 
To give us the devil — a cat serenade ! 
To waken us up when in bed we are laid. 



Cat Lyrics, 31 

What are they fit for, the noisy things ? 

How we wish they were drown-ded 

Or into jell pounded — 

Or all of them turned into new fiddle-strings ! 

For the mice and the rats, 

And some neighbor's brats 

And the bricks in our hats 

And the child scaring bats 
Are not half the bother of night-yowling cats ! 
As with sca-t-t-tr-r and y-e-ow ! 
They cause us to vow 
If we get out of bed 
Each cat will be dead 
That has mounted the shed 

And forced us to swear 

At all the cats there 1 
But when the lamp it is lit and we start with a gun 
We can't catch the devils, no matter if we run ! 

You may sing little ditties 

To cats and their kitties — 

May possibly be able with cats to agree : 

But we prefer rats 

To the best of your cats, 
Be it a pet cat — a he or a she. 

Their holes you can fill 

The rats you can kill — 

Bury all in a heap 

Then quietly sleep, 



^<^. 



Cat Lyi'ios, 



But the devil^s companions in nmnerons numbers 
Have so often and oft woke us from oui slumbers, 

That we prefer brats, 

Muskeeters or rats, 
To your treacherous, yowling-, sputtering cats, 
That ought to be plunged in hot-water vats I 






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CIIAPTEE Y. 



EIDINO A VELOCIPEDE. 




IF course we have been on it. Show 
us any infernal machine constructed 
through the ingenuity of man for 
the breaking of bones, ripping open 
of cuticle, damage of eyes, warping of backbones, 
perpetrating of contusions on head, or anything 
of that sort, that we have not been on or dare not 
try. Velocipede is a good thing, if you don't 
have too much of it ; and you can't have too 
much of it unless you get more than you want. 
Everybody rides velocipedes nowadays. The 
ladies ride them. The men ride them. The 
boys ride them. Men ride them for fun and ride 
3* 



34 Riding a Yelom{pede. 

them in earnest. And the confoundedest, stand- 
iip-f all-down-ingest thing a man, woman, or child 
ever saw, is a velocipede. 

They are erected on two wheels ; one wheel 
being immediately in front of the other wheel, 
and the other wheel being immediately behind 
t'other wheel. This makes it more binding on 
the part of the operator. There are no axle-trees, 
no yard-arms, bolster, lobster, or other parapher- 
nalia pertaining to ox-carts, wagons, bob-sleds, 
railroad cars, steamboats, balloons, or any other 
inventions for locomotion yet discovered. There 
is a little thing runs through one wheel on which 
it revolves. It comes straight up like the na- 
tional tax, then slants back four perches, five 
links, and six degrees ; then jabs downward to 
the little thing in the huid wheel, and thus ends 
the first chapter, and likewise the next. At the 
front end, when it is not going backward, there 
is a contrivance resembling an auger, by which 
the ambitious goest turns, returns, upturns, over- 



Riding a Velocipede. 35 

turns, and turns out of the way. Because of the 
auger in front, no one should consider the veloci- 
pede a perfect bore. Instead, it is a perfect goer ; 
for many a man, in learning to go on it, has start- 
ed his gore in more places than lightning ever 
struck a one-eyed pilot. The concern has a spine, 
or backbone, which is used as a roof for the two 
wheels. The wheels are three-quarters of an inch 
wide. The backbone, or roof, is an inch and a 
quarter wide. On this backbone is affixed a cast- 
iron pad resembling in shape the fi'ontispiece of 
some Dutch target company's parade-cap, except 
that the points of the pad are so arranged as to 
hurt you while mounted on this aforesaid inven- 
tion of agony. As a horsebackist, we have been 
called a success. Once we rode a mule. On 
another occasion we rode a brindle cow home 
from the fair — not to add to our comfort, but to 
pay the aforesaid bovine for i^ot drawing the 
premium. On another occasion we undertook to 
ride a speckled steer, but for some reason or 



o6 Hiding a Velocipede, 

other his finis department had a sudden inclina- 
tion to elevate itself into the air, and we dis- 
mounted over his head, simply because the mane 
of the beast did not amount to much for hanging- 
on purposes. On another occasion we rode a 
saw-mill saw for half an hour, but we never tried 
it again. 

But we did try the velocipede. We got astride 
of it and started. Immediately after, a gentle- 
man was discovered lying on the ground, to the 
merriment of lookers-on. Once more we mounted 
the breach, if by these words a cast-iron pad may 
be called, and midertook to propel the invention. 
Just then a gentleman struck his head with ex- 
treme violence against the curb-stone. More 
merriment. Another attempt, and just then a 
gentleman was discovered sprawling upon the 
ground, with his left ear full of mud. More 
merriment, but not on the part of the \dctim. 
Again we got well imder way, by the aid of two 
men to push and a small boy to steer, while we 




*• If there's some fellow you have a spite against, coax him to try a velo- 
cipede." — See page 39. 



Riding a Yelocijpede. 37 

were getting used to the contrivance ; but at such 
an hour as we knew not, our assistants departed 
from us. "We made two hmges ahead, and, while 
endeavoring to turn out for a young lady, cramped 
the wrong way, collided, took her on the inven- 
tion in front of us, and we both went off together, 
to the damage of a $10 hat and a $23 Grecian 
bend. The glory of that hat and that bend de- 
parted with much quickness, never more to return. 
As for the lady, we pray the Lord to pardon her 
for the feelings she entertains toward us, for really 
we could not help it ! 

Well, we tried it again. Undertook to cross 
the street, and accidentally ran plumb against the 
hind end of a charcoal wagon. We got off, while 
the industrious velocipede took a scoot to the left, 
landing in the gutter. Such a nice place to put 
your feet ! Good deal like sitting on a grind- 
stone, turning it with your toes. Aside from the 
delightful sensation experienced, it strains the 
muscle, and is more wearing upon garments. 



38 Hiding a Veloci/pede. 

Hiding a two-story Indiana hog just turned loose 
to fat on beacli-nuts, would be sweet cream in 
comparison with this invention. Sliding down- 
hill on a hand-saw tooth-side up, would be two 
degrees more comfortable than experimenting on 
one of these contrivances ; but then, it is fashion- 
able ! If any of our readers have a suit of clothes 
they wish to spoil, seven or eight pair of legs they 
would lame for seven weeks, a high-&iishcd and 
moral back they don't care for, fifteen or sixteen 
yards of court-plaster, a dozen or more new hats, 
several pairs of boots, and the Lord only knows 
how many coat-tails to spoil, let them buy a ve- 
locipede, and commence practice at once. To 
purchase one of the confounded things recpiires 
but a small fortune — say twice as much as is 
necessary to purchase a hand-cart, which is by 
far the most comfortable to ride on ; Avhile a few 
dollars extra would last about four horn's for in- 
surance against accidents. Go and try it. Buy 
one. But first, employ a physician by the month. 



Biding a Velocipede. 39 

to doctor you for all bruises, contusions, sprains, 
rheumatism, compound vulgar and improper 
fractions, and every ailment under the sun, when 
you may be happy yet. We have tried it. The 
next day the velocipede went off as smoothly as 
usual, but as to its rider, that's altogether another 
matter. We have not been able to walk up and 
down stairs without the aid of a cane for a week 
— have hardly spoken a good-natured word for a 
fortnight. Our best pants are at the tailor's ; 
and not less than ninety-three bottles of liniment 
stand grinning at us from every room we occupy 
during the day. If there is some fellow you 
have a spite against, coax him to try a veloci- 
pede ; when, in all probabilities, he will bring an 
action against you for ^vilful mtent to mm-der, or, 
at least, assault and battery — and make his 
action stick. 




CHAPTER YI. 



SATLOES' DANCE-HOUSE. 




IF a man has the bhies and is dissatis- 
fied with life, let him come with ns 
to-night and to-morrow night, then 
let him go with ns the next day 
afternoon on a visit to the poor of !N'ew York. 
Out on God's green fields, surrounded with the 
fi'ee air and growing vegetation, beneath the 
crimson sunsets of the West, we know not what 
it is to half Iwe^ or how our fellows do. And 
'tis well we do not from experience. 

Down on Water street, in the great city of 
New York, and on other streets also, are to be 
found sailors' boarding-houses, sailors' homes, 



Sailors^ Dance-House. 41 

sailors' clothing-stores, and sailors' dancing-rooms. 
The latter we have visited, and there learned a 
lesson. 

At twelve o'clock we passed along the street, 
east from the Battery. Over the open door of a 
two-story wooden building hung a glass gas-lamp, 
on which was painted an anchor and two danc- 
ing-girls. Passing in at the door, we were in a 
small bar-room, the floor neatly sanded, a few 
lithographs on the walls, a few chairs standing 
around, a round table on which was a backgam- 
mon-board and some well-fumbled newspapers; 
some tissue-paper cut in fancy shapes and pat- 
terns ornamented the ceiling ; a screen, or sta- 
tionary blind, stood in one corner of the room ; 
a bar well filled with nicely-polished, partly-filled 
glass decanters, presided over by a hawk-eyed 
man, and, with the exception of two strangers 
sipping a claret punch, the room is inventoried. 

Bowing to the bar-tender, who winks in return, 
we pass behind the screen, open a still-shutting 



42 Sailors^ Dance-Ilouse, 

door, and the bright gas-light shows the way 
down a flight of stairs. At the top of the stairs, 
inside the door, sits a man who takes from you 
two shillings, and in return gives back a dirty 
card. At the foot of the stairs you find another 
man, who takes the card and admits you into a 
room, in which, if you choose, you may safely 
leave your hat or coat, receiving therefor a check 
till you see fit to return. Then through a side- 
door, down a second flight of stairs, and into a 
well-lighted but not well-ventilated room about 
fifty feet by seventy. 

This is the place ; let us look around a wee bit. 

At the right is a bar extending clear across the 
room. In front is a narrow but high stage, on 
which are ^^q musicians. Hard seats are ranged 
around all sides of the room, on which are sit- 
ting men, principally sailors, eager for fun, and 
women who could gain admittance here without 
exhibiting a marriage certificate. There are one 
or two black women and a few black men, but 



Sailors' Dance-House, 43 

they do not seem to confine their attention to 
those of their own color. 

Fashion had little to do with dress here — 
tawdry finery, draggled silk dresses full short 
above, gay tinselled head-dresses, cheap jewelry, 
and paint. "Wrecks of humanity I Forms once 
loved, oh, how well ! Hopes once so bright, now 
turned to ashes. God pity theml Here they 
can drown their sorrow, and nightly reach an- 
other mile-stone on the road to hell. In they 
came till the room was full, and soon the danc- 
ing began. No one waited for an introduction, 
but each one sailed in on his own hook, dancing 
and drinking, joking and laughing. 

The room was close and hot. Two stories 
under ground, it could not well be otherwise, 
when a hundred half-intoxicated men and 
women, both black and white, were singing and 
dancing and sweating down there like crazy 
devils. The plain but heavy oak bar across the 
far end of the room was covered with slops and 



44: Sailors^ Dance-House. 

thick, heavy glasses, which would serve as sliing- 

shots for a week without being broken or 

cracked. By one o'clock the fun was lively. 

The space in front of the bar was crowded, and 

a constant stream of " blue rum " went sizzling 

down the throats of the sailors and their partners. 

The six bar-tenders, with short hair, round heads, 

thick, short lips, red shirts, and arms bared, sweat 

like a man cradling, as they flew around fiom 

bottle to bottle, making change for this party, 

swearing at that one, and ordering back those 

If 
who had just drank. 

The music struck up for a waltz. A tall, cor- 
pulent sailor, who would weigh at least two hun- 
dred and thirty pounds, with a half-dnmlven 
woman nearly his equal in size, jumped for the 
lead, and away they, went — around and around ! 
In twenty seconds fifty couple were whirling and 
twirling, till it seemed to us as if the room was a 
large chiurn, and the inmates were so many sticks 
rattling and jolting together as it went flying 



Sailors^ Dance-House, 45 

around. Hot! A hay-field was nothing to it. 
Away they went circling around, black and 
white ; here a big black fellow hugging a once 
beautiful white girl in close embrace ; there a 
red-nosed American, two-thirds drunk, with the 
head of a black, greasy-looking wench lovingly 
reclining on his shoulder, his coarse, meaty hand 
half -imbedded in the thick fat of her sides ; yon- 
der a short-legged German and a slim-waisted 
girl whirling like a top, till it made one dizzy to 
look at them. 

In five minutes all were tired out, and had 
marched to the bar, except the big couple and 
the American with the fat wench. Around the 
large room they went, keeping step to the music. 
Others turned to watch them, when one fellow 
with a sailor-jacket on sang out : 

" Heave ahead, old merchantman ! " 

And he did "heave ahead," the little chap 
close behind. 

" I'll go the grog on the slaver I " sang out a 



46 Sailors' Dance-House. 

jolly-looking chap who was fanning himself with 
his tarpaulin. 

" Ole V'ginny neber tiah ! " lisped the wench, 
as she passed the corner where our party stood, 
her black, greasy face looking with Ethiopian 
fondness into the face of her partner, and her 
mnsk-nlar bosom heaving and tossing like a bum- 
boat at anchor in a storm 1 

" C-o-rn-e i-n ! " sang out old corpulence, as 
he whirled past, panting for breath. 

The crowd was excited, and even forgot to 
drink, so anxious were they to see who would tire 
out first ; and their remarks were in earnest, if 
not fashionably expressed : 

" Heave up, my hearty ! " 

" Go in, little 'uns — a black sky and a white ! " 

" Two to one on the whales ! " 

" That's a go for the grog ! " 

" Rijp ! my sweet Creole ! If you beats ^ Top- 
light Bill,' I wants a piece of you ! " 



Sailors^ Dance-Hoiise. 47 

On they went, panting, sweating, and waltzing, 
with " Toplight Bill " and the " Creole " ahead. 

The big couple were good dancers, but in a 
strife of this kind the lighter couple had the ad- 
vantage, and in ten minutes from the time the 
trial began, " Toplight Bill " and his sunburnt 
partner had the floor ! Twice around the room 
they went, after the other couple had given out, 
then marched to the bar, blowing and puffing 
like a horse with the heaves. 

Drinking over for a few moments, and while 
the crowd were waiting for the music to wet up. 

" Give us a song, Shorty ! " sang out a very 
free-and-easy sailor, who evidently did not care 
whether school kept or not. 

" A song — a song — a song — ^yes, a song — a jolly 
good 'un ! " sang out a score of voices, when a 
fancy-looking little fellow, about five feet no 
inches, in sailor-dress, stepped out on the floor, 
and in a fine alto voice began : ♦ 



48 * Sailors' Dance-House, 

Jack's alive and merry, boys, 

When he's got the rhiners ; 
Heh ! for rattle fun and noise, 

Hang all grumbling whiners. 
Then drinlc, and call for what you please, 

Until you've had your whack, boys ; 
We think no more of raging seas, 

Now we have come back, boys. 

CiioKUS, in which about twenty voices joined, 
keeping time by slapping their hands on their 
legs: 

Rip, Skip ! spoodledy whang, 
Skip galore, scatter a wee ; 
Rip Skip ! jig it again 
Grog galore and off to sea ! 

" Bravo ! bravo ! " 

"Don't stop, little one," as the singer was 
about to step back. 

Jack's alive, and full of fun ; 

At sea or shore he's jolly, 
With a helping hand for every one 

And a sailor's heart for Polly. 
Then drink, and call for what you please. 

Until you've had your whack, boys ; 
We think no more of raging seas 

For Polly has brought us back, boys I 

Cnoiius, &c. 



Sailors^ DaThce-House. 49 

" Partners for a hornpipe ! " rang out a square- 
shouldered, muscular man, the " boss " of the 
concern. He was dressed in style, with check 
pants, squai-e-toed boots for picking, red under 
and white ever shirt, both unbuttoned at the col- 
lar, sleeves rolled up, and hat removed from a 
close-cropped head. He was about five feet eight 
inches high, square frame, looking like a tough 
nut to crack, as he was. His eye was all over 
the room, and we noticed that, whenever he went 
up to a noisy fellow and told him kindly to " go 
slow," the noisy individual thought it good ad- 
vice, and gave heed. 

We never saw the sailors' hornpipe danced till 
we saw it here, and the exhibition of agility was 
worth a day's journey. One might as well try to 
keep track of a flea by moonlight, as to try to tell 
whose bodies the hundred legs on the floor be- 
longed to. This dance over, another rush to the 
bar, another hoisting in of bottled death, and an- 
3 



50 Sailors^ Dance-House, 

other song by a black-whiskered boatswain's 
mate : 

Steer clear from the musty old lubbers 

Who tell us to fast and to think, 
And patient fall in with life's rubbers 

With nothing but water to dnnk /" 

Chorus, as before, but sung in a slow strain : 

But water ? 
Cold water ! 
Fresh water ! 
Weak water ! 
Thin water ! 
With nothing — but water — to drink ! 

" Come on, my hearties ! let's splice the main 
again ; then for the Barbadoes jig ! " 

While the crowd was surging up toward the 
bar, we stood and carefully scanned the motley 
assemblage. Most of them were from twenty- 
one to middle age, although among the men were 
a few old salts whose hair was turning gray. 
Most of them were sailors, intent on fun and 
spending their hard-earned money; and, what 



Sailors^ Dance-House. 61 

between poor whiskey and other pleasures, they 
were in a fair way to soon be ready for another 
cruise. With a few exceptions, there was noth- 
ing ngly about the countenances of the motley 
crowd assembled there. Good nature, careless- 
ness, love of fun, and a sort of jolly indepen- 
dence, were the chief traits discernible. They — 
the sailors — ^had long been absent from shore- 
scenes and pleasures, and were evidently bound 
to have a good time ; and their partners, who fre- 
quent such places, and literally " freeze " to the 
poor tar soon as he returns fi'om a cruise, till his 
money be spent, were as attentive and loving as 
a poor sailor could wish. 

Here, in this and kindred saloons, night after 
night, commencing about midnight, does the fun 
— song and dance — have full sway. Here is 
the sailor robbed, and, with empty purse and dis- 
ease renewed, soon fitted for another voyage ! 
When the song is loudest, the passer-by on the 
street would not dream that under his feet was so 



52 Sailors' Dance-House, 

much noise, or that, in through that nicel3^-sancl- 
ed bar-room, behind that green shade, was a door 
leading down two flights of stairs — so far down 
that the horn of Gabriel would fail to arouse 
passers-by ; yet such is the case. 

The keepers of these places make money, and 
not a few of them are owned by up-town mer- 
chants, who employ a trusty man as overseer. 
The small admittance-fee of twenty-five cents 
more than pays the music and rent; while the 
profits from the sale of doctored liquors and vile 
cigars cannot be short of a hundred dollars a 
night. 




CHAPTER VII 



A War Tale. 



CHAPTER THE ONE. 




T was night — the hub of it ! 



CHAPTER THE SECOND. 

"And now, daughter, go to your 
retiracy ! Muchly as I love you, and zephyr-like 
as your frail body is to me, I tell you, nymph, 
thou shalt never marry Theophilus. He is poor. 
You are rich. The noble house of Squiggers 
shall never be dishonored by menial blood." 



54 A War Talc, 

CnAPTER TWO-AND-ONE. 

" Tlieopliilns Iloneybalm, go licnce ! How 
dare you, a hired man in the employ of your Me- 
hitable's father, look upon my child to woo ? 
Begone I You have no position. My nymph- 
like child shall never wed and bear children to 
any man who is not noble." 



CHAPTER THE AND-SO-FOUKTH. 

" Come to the window, child ! " It was June. 
" Why art so cast down, wasted beauty % " She 
had gro^vn thin of meat. " I will find for thee a 
mate, sweet bird of song I " Mehitable sang a 
little while washing dishes. 

" Wliat ho, without I " Somebody was knock- 
ing on the door. 



CHAPTER FIVE. 



" Il-a-a-a-a-a-lt I " spake in gentle tones the in- 
truder. It was General Theophilus lloneybahn ! 



A War Tale, 55 

"Tis h-e-e-e-e-e-e I " That's what Mehitablo 
gave utterance to. 

" Yes, 'tis he I I come ! Stand back, old 

man ! To the rear ! Ten paces backward 

MARCH ! " 

Old Squiggers retrograded, 'cause Theopliilus 
had a whang-striker in both hands, red with — 
rust. 

" N"ow, old man " — so said the Greneral — " I 
come to claim my bride ; I am a B. G. — a 
Brig.-Gen. Three long months have flewded. I 
am now a great man. Seest thou this pile of 
gold ? I have a million ! I have houses and 
lands. I have position. I have honor. I wrote 
a puff for my General ! I was given a nigger 
regiment. For fifty dollars' worth of mules I 
bribed the telegraph to record my daring deeds. 
I came out for the brunette part of this Govern- 
ment ! The President rewarded me. I am a 
General of Ethiopianos ! " 

Then whispered the sire : 



50 



A War Tale, 



" Gonenil, aro you honest ? " 

" Ai-o I honest ? Do the world exist \ T aro. 
It do ! Else I were not a General." 

" Then take her. I am satistied. The coun- 
try is saio. Vi\ child, bo happy 1 " 

And he took her. 

This ends a histoiy of lovo and loyalty. 




CHAPTEE YIII. 



EACE ON THE PKAIEIE. 




ILEYEN o'clock ! 

Sharp to the second struck the 
belL 

" All aboard ! " shouted the con- 
ductor, as we reached up for the iron hand-help 
and sprang to the floor of Engine No. 199, just 
starting from Chicago eastward for New York. 

A more beautiful, life-giving morning we 
never knew. Saturday morning in that great 
city of the West — that eighth wonder of the 
world ! An appointment made by telegraph, to 
be at our office at sharp seven o'clock Sunday 
evening. We were in a hurry — like a pendu- 



58 liace on the Prairie, 

lum vibrating between impoi*tant intei*ests, mark- 
ing time and events for otliers. So we asked for 
the quickest i-oute ; and a good friend gave proof 
tliat his route over the Alleghany Mountains was 
the quickest, easiest, and the best. And so wo 
hastened to the depot, quickly as whirling car- 
riage-wheels and fast horses could take us, just in 
time for the bell — and the 

"All aboard r' 

Ever by choice at the front — out of the dust 
and into the danger ; for, in case of a collision, 
it would be glorious to rush into eternity and 
tell them : 

" The rest of the mangled delegation will bo 
here in a minute I " 

Hiding on the engine ! How clear and 
bright I Everything in perfect order. The 
polished steel, ii-on, and brass mirrored faces, 
forms, and scenery. The sharp-eyed, cool- 
brained, steady-nerved, temperate engineer, knows 
his busmess, fi-om the lightest puff of steam to 



Race on the Prairie. 59 

the handling of that mighty mass of machinery, 
as a mother would the babe dandled on her 
knees. 

The fireman rang the engine-bell, and fed the 
glowing mouth of the tamed fiend we were on. 
Out from Chicago — slowly, steadily out from 
the cross-streets, store-houses, homes of workers, 
crossing lines of raiboads, huge granaries and 
mammoth elevators, where wheat is lifted and 
stored for market. 

- Out from the wide-spreading, wonderful city — 
past little houses and big ones — past the grimy- 
looking men with little signal-flags at road-cross- 
ings — past the halted processions of drays, carts, 
wagons, milk pogies, carriages, and business life ; 
out into the broad, beautiful prairie country, 
where God's mighty thunder has rolled all in- 
equalities of elevation to a level ! 

Out from the city at last. Out from municipal 
regulation as to speed of train. At liberty now 
to begin our journey as the storm-clouds travel. 



60 Hace on the Prairie. 

The fireman lets loose from the bell-rope, 
swings open the furnace-door, and with wood 
tickles the palate of the devil's baby we are rid- 
ing on, till it inner-whistles, chuckles with de- 
light, throws out its mesmerism, of power, trem- 
bles with created emotion, and seems ready to 
leave the smooth, silver-topped steel rails, and fly 
through the air. 

But the little man with eye like that of an 
eagle — with skull-cap drawn tight over his head 
— ^with look close upon and far-reaching the rails 
before him — with mind intent only on his duties 
and responsibilities, rests his hand on that little 
steel pulse-bar ; the powerful pet he so masters 
by a touch loses its nervousness, as does a woman 
when the strong arm of a fearless man is thrown 
between her and danger. 

Faster — i2i'&iQv— faster— faster ! 

Out and away! Twenty, twenty-five, thirty 
miles an hour. Only playing with distance as 
yet! We are only picking up the mile-posts 



Hace on the Prairie. 61 

slowly now, looking at them and throwing them 
down 1 

Ha^ ha ! 

A rival on the road I Once more at your old 
tricks I Right ahead of us, as the arrow flies to 
its rest, rmis om* line of track, miles away. And 
to our left, not more than a pistol-shot distant, is 
another track, and, like the one we are on, 
straight ahead for miles, till, following the mark- 
ing of the builders, the road bears away to the 
left and the northward. 

And on that track, out from Chicago, comes 
a light, rakish-looking train— the lightning-ex- 
press ; four long, light passenger-cars. But 
there is grace of motion for you 1 The cloud 
of black smoke miscegenating with the white 
steam lifts itself up into air for the rushing train 
to pass under. The red driving-wheels of the 
beautiful engine reach into the distance with 
their connecting-bar arm, short, quick, snappish, 
and the train rushes by. The engineer over 



62 Hace on the Prairie, 

there nods at us fi-om his cab-window ; the fire- 
man loolvs at us with frvratino: thumb to his nose ; 
the brakemen on that living train shake hands at 
us, as if to say, " Gooil-bve ; if you are in a hiu-- 
ry, send along with us ; " the passengei*s at the 
windows wave their handkei*chiefs, and motion 
for us to " come on ! " 

Keallv, that is vei*v nice — when we are in 
haste, and those on that train are travelling East, 
as we are ! And, in less time than we have con- 
sumed in wi'itmg the two preceding paragraphs, 
the rival ti*ain is half a mile ahead of us, flying 
like a devil-kite over the flat-land. 

Smile? Xot a bit. We looked at the engi- 
neer, who seemed to know his business ! He 
looked at us once ; there was a noil — it was 
enough. Then he looked at om- young fi-iend, 
master of transportation, with us on the engine. 
Another answering nod. 

Business, now ! The fii-eman jerked open the 
fiu-nace-door, and into the livid throat of om- 



jRaoe on the Prairie. 63 

devil-pet went the wooden lunch, to be fire-gra- 
vied and devoured. The engineer pulled that 
BkuU-cap a little closer over his eyes, and opened 
the window before him ; then his left foot 
reached down to the brace, as if to say some- 
thing to the network of mechanism ! Then he 
leaned forward just a little, like a jockey win- 
ning the Derby, took bold of the lever, and 
pulled so slowly and firmly that it seemed as if 
he was in love with his engine. 

Thank you I A little more steam — and the 
engine whistled its thanks and laughed in a 
tremor of delight ! Another slow pull on that 
lever-bar, a steady hand held there, and see how 
beautifully our prairie-chaser settles to the work ! 

Faster ! 

Faster ! ^ 

Faster ! 

Thirty-five miles an hour! — forty miles an 
hour! — forty-five miles an hour! — fifty miles 
an hour ! And still faster I We are after that 



64: Ea<ic on the Pmine, 

nikish-ruuning fugitive alioud of us ou that other 
tmek I Aud that traiu is flying wiUl ! The 
inik>-post8 fairly dtuice, to "bo thivwu, as it wore, 
without a notice, a niik> to our rear ! The en- 
gine lias no time to trenibk^ now ; there is work 
being done I It seems as if we were fairly llat- 
teuiuir to the traok — huiTiriuir the earth — rush- 
ing like a storm-courier into eternity ! The engi- 
neer looks not fivm the rail ; his hand eomos not 
fix)m the bar — and still faster we rush on, as 
never before. 

Did you ever see a juggler swallow a sword ? 
So are we swallowing the line of open space be- 
tween the trains ! Like two scared devils aro 
these two engines working their best. That ono 
over there is a beautv ; but this ono is " old busi- 
ness 1 '' Wo come up to the rear end of the 
train ; the bmkeman on the rear platform, as wc 
are opposite him with the engine, tm-ns away in 
disgust. Xow for it, red-hot ! Just a little moi*o 
etemn, and we shoot bv like a dart, as if it waa 



liacc on tlhc Pra/i/rie. f>5 

80 coxy ! The pasBCiigers on that train wavr3 no 
more handkcrchiefo ; there is a lon^ wliite flash 
of them from the windowB of our r^arn, as wo 
Irxjk }>ack. 

We quietly motion to the eng-ineer over there 
t/j try it again, lie Bhakes liis head, and thinks 
— as did the Dutchman's hoy ! 

Here we are — they are there ! And then, as 
speed was Blackened, our engineer says, with a 
smile : 

" Oood mornvruj ! " 

And the two trains went on their way as if 
nothing had happened — as there had not — only 
a race — a going a little faster than usual rate of 
speed, out of compliment to a perfect track and 
the perfection of machinery. 

" A good engine I '' 

" You are right — the best in the world." 

" Where was she made ? " 

" At our shops." 

" A model piece of work." 



r>() Jiiic<) on the Prairie. 

" Yes, sir ; our boys know their business." 

And the eu^-iueer looked so k^vin^-ly and ap- 
pi\">vini::ly on the beauty on whleh we nxle — the 
strength, the polish, the perfect ion ol* ingvnuity. 
The lineman opened the d(.xn- so we eould hear 
the little devils in the hot thivat and livid fur- 
nace laugh iviid ehueklo over the work so well 
done under the guiding hand of a brave man, 
who could tiiino the elements to aimihilate space. 
■}«• 4f * -K- •}{•-:<• 

And we kx>ked at the country ^at the beauti- 
ful engine — at the long stretch of railivad — at 
the irork men had done for such great pur}K>se. 

Then wo sat on the cushioned seat so kindly 
given up to us by the firenuin, who soon will bo 
an engineer, and thought of the earnest workei-s 
of the land — «.>f the braw-anued uieehanics, 
whose muscle we almost envy — of their clink- 
clank on anvils — of their work over hot tires — 
of their dailv, dailv, dailv work — oi their wives 
and their little ones — of theii' sweethearts and 



Race on the Prairie* 67 

their hopes for the future — of the earnest life 
they are living — oi the work they are doing for 
the benefit of our country. 

And we thought of the men on farms, the 
women in farm-houses, the children who wish for 
better homes, better education, better clothing, 
and how proud we were to know that these work- 
ing-men, working-women, and working-children 
were, and are, entitled to the honor of making 
our country great. 

Then, we thought, as the' train flew on, as the 
engineer managed the beautiful machinery made 
by other workingmen, as the fireman threw in 
the wood cut by other workingmen, as we rode 
over the roads laid' by still other workingmen, as 
we dashed by the homes of yet other working- 
men, as we hastened on to help our workingmen^ 
how glorious it is to live and be of some use in 
this world, which is one of the little machine- 
shops of the universe. 

And we said, while thinking of what the saw- 



68 Race on the Prairie. 

ers of wood, the drawers of water, the miners of 
metals, the pounders of iron, the cookers of food, 
the workers everywhere are doing to help them- 
selves, and help each other : 

God love the worJcers of America, and dcAnn 
the Power that will not jprotect them ! 







dm- 



CHAPTEK IX. 



REMINISCENCE OF KOXELIA. 






OU never saw Eoxelia Powlowker, 
the crimson-haired daughter of Gen- 
eral Washington Powlowker, of Bos- 
ton, did you? If not, Pll tell you 
about her. She is married, now— has been for 
years. But she was not then. 

I was a boy — a pale-eyed songling of some 
note, but not possessed of much wealth. My 
parents were honest people. General Powlowker 
lived in a stone house— a large edifice, with not 
less than nineteen rooms inside, and room for 
more outside. Mrs. Powlowker called it a stxm 
house ; but she was always so facetious. 



70 Reminiscence of Roxelia, 

Mrs. Powlowker was General Powlowker's 
wife — lawfully wedded unto him a long time 
previous. His father was one of them as fit into 
the Revolution. He, too, had a contract — took 
his pay in Continental money, bought land, 
loaned it out in corner-lots with mortgage secur- 
ity, and took on style. He must have been pos- 
sessed of at least several thousand dollars, if not 
more. He was a respectable man. He never 
drank out of a bottle. He never swore before 
the preacher, or other company. But sometimes, 
in the barn, or when a wasp would sting into him 
he would converse in dialect most sulphurious. 

He had five children — three boys, and two who 
were pretty near boys. Eoxelia was one of the 
latter. 

I was one of the boys she used to be pretty 
near, only when the old gent would catch us at 
it ! Then he objected. Once or twice he object- 
ed with a boot. But did true love ever run 
smooth ? 



Reminiscence of Hoxelia. 71 

I heart-hankered for Roxelia. She was fair to 
look upon. She had health — abont one hnndred 
and eighty pounds of it. And her face ! It was 
all there. And her feet ! What sighs ! — as I 
think of those. And her hair ! Like her heart 
— to love her Marlmel, decidedly ready. 

She was to have property some day. "We all 
desire property. As a nation of accumulators, 
we are a general success. I was not rich, but 
was willing to be. And I did love Koxelia. 
She was the first girl I ever saw so much of. 
There was not' so much of any other girl as of 
her. 

How I courted that girl ! The first eggs of 
spring I found in her father's barnary and laid 
in her lap. The early birch-bark and the pris- 
tine juvenile wintergreen, with an occasional slip 
of prince's pine, would I besiege her with. The 
language of the latter — I pine for thee, O 
Roxelia. 

I desired to become wedlockically acquainted 



T2 Meminiscence of Roxelia. 

with her. I visited her Saturday nights, and 
stayed till Morpheusly sleepy. But not when the 
old man was there. ^ I looked with luscious eye 
on the time when I could be son-in-law to the 
General. But I was poor. My home was in a 
blacksmith-shop — part of the time. Because I at 
times was caught at a vise, the old man had no 
use for me. He asked if I had money. 

" No, no, old man," I said. 

But Roxelia did not detest me. Oft have I sat 
on the fence and looked in at her window. Often 
did I stand and see her father walk by. But he 
never noticed me. But I did his girl. We 
planned elopements. "We sat, and sighed, and 
squeezed each other's hands. It is justly sup- 
posed to be fun. Indeed it is. So we liked it. 
Hoxelia liked it, too. We made affection to each 
other. We met by moonlight. Once she moved 
forth from her chamber-window and sat on the 
wood-shed roof. I would shed my blood as that 
wood-shed roof would shed rain ; and so, anxious 



JReminiscence of Boxelia. 73 

lad that I was, I laddered myself up to her side, 
and reposed with my head in her lap, till each of 
ns took a cold in the head. But what is cold in 
the head to a heart all aflame with a consuming 
fire ? Colds troubled Koxelia. They were red- 
headitary in the family. But she went not into 
the chamber that night, like a turtle in his pal- 
ace, till we had plighted. When should come 
the spring-time, we were to wed. This contract 
was negotiated in the gentle autmnn, when the 
moon was in its mooniest glory, and chickens had 
not read of Thanksgiving terrors. 

Then I was very happy. I slid off that roof' as 
easy ! Who .cares for ladders, when happiness 
fills him like smoke in a new church ? Wliat if 
a brave boy sprains his knee and destroys the 
wholeness of wearing apparel, if his Roxelia has 
only anchored her head on his shoulder, and said 
yea to his enticements 1^ 

The next day I went to work with renewed 
cheerfulness. It was of the vernal time coming, 
4 



74 lieminiscence of Roxelia. 

and of Roxelia, that I thought, and of our com- 
ing joys, and home, and hen-coops, and good 
clothes, and 'lasses, and looking-glasses, and per- 
haps of other responsibilities, when I should earn 
them. 

The next night, like a dutiful girl, she told her 
paternal that she had chosen and had promised to 
wed with the object of her father's cholorousness. 
lie was angry — perhaps more. lie took hold of 
her ear with vehemence. lie wafted her from 
him. lie said she was no daughter of his — 
which was a rough joke on her mother, to say the 
least. But the General was angry. lie threat- 
ened convent for the girl and double-barrelled 
shot-gun for the boy. But she was firmness. 
Then I loved Hoxelia none the less. Quite to 
the very contrary. 

So we sat in meditation and apprehension. 

And alas ! 

One day a man came there, who was a scion of 
wealth, who boasted of pedigree, who wore oil on 



Reminiscence of Roxelia. 75 

his mustache, who carried a cane, and wore 
cream-colored kids. lie spake French, and 
Greek, and Russian, and other oddities, to me. 
He was the Count Somebody. lie talked with 
the General. lie played sweet on the fair Rox- 
elia. lie minced his language lie boasted of 
his paternity, and of his beautiful home by tlie 
sea. As a talker, he was a success. 

Good-by, boy in a blacksmith-shop ! 

When the vernal season came, there was a wed- 
ding. The Count and Roxelia were the ones. 
She turned up her nose at me. Old Powlowker 
wanted me to come and* black boots for the 
Count the night he was to be married. lie said 
it was an lienor he would confer upon me. I 
went — not much ! 

Time has been flying a few years. ' 

I saw Roxelia to-day. Her Count was also a 
banker — a large dealer. But he dealt fair-0 ! 
he did. Old Powlowker thought he was a catch. 
So did Roxelia. So it was — for Roxelia. Now 



76 Reminiscence of lioxelia, 

she has two or three little Counts. She tends an 
oyster sal(^n in the Bowery. I have been there 
twice to-day — once for a stew, once for a few 
raw. She does not know me now. Her hus- 
band holds a position in Sing-Sing — three years 
yet to serve. 

To-morrow I will drive by her saloon, and per- 
haps step in and order a broil, or a dozen on the 
half -shell. Slie seems to understand the business. 

Maybe I will ask her if she ever lived at , 

and loiew old General Powlowker, or if she re- 
members him ? I will tell her my name is I^or- 
val, or Jones, or Perigrew, or Winterset, or some- 
thing. Her father is older now. So is Roxelia. 
He was quite rich. then. But that was before the 
war — ^before his daughter married a Count, and 
before the boy who worked in a blacksmith-shop, 
and had no fine shirt to wear, was 
Rememberingly thine. 




CHAPTEE X. 



KU-EXUX ! 




O THE Pkesident OF THE United 
States : to the Senate and House of 
Reprobates, and all other loyal citi- 
zens at home or roaming : 
This, the prayer of your outraged petitioner, 
prayeth — Selah ! 

My name, which it is Wandering Y. A. Bond. 
My father made basswood hams, and that was 
the cause of it. The amateur part of my varie- 
gated life was spent in Kew Hampshire. Edu- 
cated on two catechisms — one Kitty chism and 
baked beans on Sunday, I skinned cats on Mon- 
day for worrying rats on the Sabbath, and thus 



78 ' Ku-Klux, 

became one of tlie anointed. Ours was a Chris- 
tian neighborhood. The song of praise in the 
morn, and the flipping of coppers for the con- 
tents of the contribution-pLT,te, were heard each 
Sabbath, while the sistere of the flock poured 
molasses and the rum of New England together 
for evening devotions and ornamenting of puri- 
tanical noses. 

This, by way of prelude. 

Wlien the war came I was at home, bnsy at 
my avocation. 1 heard the harsh tocsin of flght. 
It wakened me from my afternoon nap on a 
bench in the corner grocery, and kindled a new 
impulse into me. It filled me with martial de- 
sire. I sold my clam-cart, and laid my all on the 
altar of Government. I was commissioned by 
the best President of the best Government the 
best people in the best world ever saw, to arm 
and go forth as a Chaplain, to flght the enemies 
of Gog and Magog, Shadrach, Abraham, and 
Belial. 



Ku-Klux. 79 

In two days I fitted m^^self for the ministry ; 
in one day fitted for war — a cerulean uniform 
and an empty trunk. At the expense of our 
good Government I rode forth by sea and by 
land, on foot and on horseback ; going up and 
down the earth, preaching currant-jelly for the 
stomach, plunder for the body, and loyalty for 
effect. Therefore hear me, ye President and 
other Keprobates of the upper and nether mill- 
stones, whose business which is to grind with 
steady continuality those who are gnilty of mis- 
fortune. 

So give ear, you who have ears in abundance, 
to this my loyal complaint. I have been out- 
raged — victimized — destroyed. Warped in my 
liberties and demoralized in my pursuits, I now 
demand the protection of Congress. 

One summer day I left the grottos of Xew 
'Hampshire, to travel South. Two hundred men 
who wanted to get rid of me signed a paper as to 
my worth, and, with the proceeds of the contri- 



80 Kn-Klux. 

bution-plate one Sabbath, I lit out. Miles I wan- 
dered, by sea and land, till I pierced the heart 
and borders beyond the rebellions land in- the 
South ! 

One day I was walking along the road in 
Texas, when I saw a man in a field, with a mnle 
and a plow and a tattered suit of gray, making 
believe he was at work When I saw him in 
those whipped garments, my hair clove to the 
roof of my mouth, and my tongue got upon its 
end like squills in fretful tui-pentine. I thought 
of the way he had murdered our innocents, pro- 
longed the war, starved us at Andersomdlle, 
cheated Banl^s on Eed Kiver, and sold cotton to 
our Northern Generals! My poor heart did 
seethe and bile, like soap in a new kettle. At 
last I got over the apology for a fence, and ap- 
proached the villain, and said unto him in a loud, 
loyal tone of voice, so his mule could hear me : 

" Plowin', are ye ? Why ain't ye in a grocery, 
hrn'rahin' for Grant? Is this the way you spit 



Ku-Klux, 81 

upon your benefactors ? Plowin', are ye ? Why 
dcaa't you leave this work for the poor blacks ? " 

" Nothing to pay them with ! " said he. 

Then I said, says I : 

" You are a liar and a rebel ! That old coat 

was not made in ISTew England ! " 
> 
He looked at me and to his mule, and said : 

" Whoa, Butler ! " 

He had but one arm ; then I knew he was a 
rebel, and I thought proper to subdue his re- 
bellion. I engaged him, but alas ! he bounced 
me I He thrust his one fist into my left eye ; 
he punched me on the end of my nostril, and he 
kicked at me with the ungodly vehemence of a 
jackass. So I was compelled to move on in sor- 
row and suffering. He is not whipped yet ! A 
kind negro lady kept me all night, and, because 
I was sore, torn, bruised, and battered, put me in 
her little bed. In the language of Absalom, 
when he hung himself by the hair up to dry, I 
groaned : 



82 ^ Ku'Klux. 

r ' 

*' Tliis is the place I long have sought, 
And weeped because I found it not ! " 

Will Congress protect her loyal citizens from 
such outrages ? 

Ku-Klux I 

Again your petitioner puts forth. AYalking 
one day in Louisiana, I saw a horse kick a gen- 
tleman of color — of Baez complexion. Of 
coiu'se, the gentleman was loyal ; the horse was 
not. So I went up to him, and said to him : 

" Wounded and outraged brother, who o^vns 
that horse ? " 

" Marsa Eobert." 

" Was that horse in the Southern army ? " 

" Yes, marsa." 

" Go home, mutilated citizen ; I will punish 
this noble brute ! " 

To punish him for kicking my brother, I en- 
ticed him under and between me, and, with a 
stout switch, so warmed the steed that he ran 
fifteen miles before I could stop him. I pulled 



Ku-Klux. 83 

up at a grocery, and who should come out from 
that 'ere sinful place but the man who owned the 
horse ! 

Instead of staying at home and doing his work, 
he had left it to niggers, and a horse to abuse 
them. I told him of it — told how it was my 
duty to protect the down-trodden and punish 
their oppressors. The man was a rebel ; I know 
it, for his hair was gray ! lie seized the horse, 
hove me from its back, and, with the aid of some 
ungodly ones, so set upon me that I was bounced 
again ! 

Kn-Klux ! Will Congress not interfere, or 
will it not ? 

Hear me again, most noble President. Kot 
liking the rebellious atmosphere of Louisiana, I 
sought the everglades of Florida ; and here again 
my loyalty cansed me much suifering. 

On a circus-day, while the tent was going up, I 
saw many contrabands seated in shady places, 
playing Old Sledge, Penny- Ante, and such wick- 



84 Ku-Klux. 

ed games. Procuring a box, I mounted mj^self 
thereon, and said unto these innocent men and 
brothers : 

" Come here, sable objects of our Government, 
and give heed unto my advice. Behold in me a 
loyal man from New England ! During the war 
I wept for you often and often. During the war 
I fought copperheads and butternuts, traitors and 
Democrats in the North, oftentimes in one day 
slaying ten thousand or more with my good right 
arm. Now I come to you from the best Govern- 
ment in the world, to say to you this : 

" Continue as you are continuing. For years 
you were forced to labor, and now it is your turn 
to live in idleness. Make your old masters sup- 
port you. Every mother's son of }'ou here is en- 
titled to forty acres and a mule ; or, if the land 
is not handy, forty mules and an acre ! It is 
your business now to govern. It is your business 
to make laws, and to punish the white trash 
of the country, turned over to your hands for 




"Procuring a box, I mounted myself tliercon, and said unto these inno- 
cent brothers " — See. pu(]e 84. 



KvrKlux. 85 

punishment by the loyal Government of the 
JSTorth. 

" Therefore I say unto ye, sable denizens, 
whenever you see a white man, go for him ; re- 
lieve him of his chickens, his horses, his property 
generally ; and, if he objects, go for him in the 
dead hour of night, till he shall learn that you 
are the monarchs of America, and that " 

Just then, Mr. President, I was seized with a 
sudden fear. In the crowd I saw a white man 
loading a shot-gun. The man was seventeen feet 
high, and I know it, and his gun was eighty-six 
feet long ! While he was putting seven or eight 
pounds of buck-shot in the left-hand baiTel, I 
noticed a reliable contraband makino: haste 
through the crowd, coming with vigilance towaixi 
my platform. lie approached, lifted his lips to 
my ear, and whispered : 

" You'd better git ;- dat ar man am a Ku- 
Klux ! » 

I got! 



Affain was I oiitraored in North Carolina. 
Wliile seated by the roadside, comiting up 
spoons, watches, picture-frames, celery-dishes, 
punch-ladles, and such little things I had found 
in my travels through the country — while pre- 
paring to box and ship them to fi-iends in the 
Noi-th — I saw a crowd of boys and girls coming 
toward me. They were children ranging from 
seven to twelve years of age. I looked, Mr. 
President and Members of Congress, upon their 
faces, but there was no sadness there ! The little 
rebels were laughing and playing just like other 
children — and the American flag floating only 
thirty miles away ! Great God ! Mr. President, 
can such things be, and be tolerated in this free 
country ? My spirit again rose within me, and 
my blood took unto itself feelings of vengeance. 
"When this regiment of young rebels came along, 
I rose in my dignity, pulled my hat well do^\^l 
upon my head, stretched forth my right hand, 
and proclaimed : 



Ku-Klux. 87 

" Ob, ye little whelps of ungodly peoplehood ! 
Your fathers were rebels, and ye deserve death. 
Know ye not that I am a loyal man, and that 
your smiles, your laughs, your hilarious fun, and 
your mirth as ye are going to school, is an out- 
rage in my ears % 

" Ye know what ye are — ye are the advance- 
guard of Ku-Klux ! Your mission is to waylay 
strangers, that your biggers and your backers 
may come up and bounce them. Why are ye 
not mixing with the little innocent blacks ? 
Your fathers were thieves ; they were rebels ; 
they objected when the cross-eyed patriots of the 
North stole spoons ; they found fault with the 
Christians of the comitry for burning houses 
where your rebellious, ungodly parents lived. 
And your mothers, what are they, O ye brats of 
the South ? What are your mothers ? They are 
she-adders ; they are rebels ; they are not so 
good as the blacks ; and yet, ye little scapegraces 



88 JTu-ITlux. 

dare stand up and look an honest man like me in 
the face ! -" 

Becoming excited, I waved my carpet-bag, 
when one of the urchins, a villanous-faced youth 
of eleven years, sang out : 

" Oh, boys ! he's a carpet-bagger. We've 
heard just such talk before. Let's bomice him ! " 

And, Mr. President, they proceeded at once to 
carry their infernal threat into execution. They 
attacked me in front and rear with stones. They 
called me vile names. They wrenched from me 
my carpet-bag, and divided my plunder among 
them. They said I was a thief. They advised 
me to get to my home. I called upon several 
intelligent contrabands who were near to come to 
my relief, but so terror-stricken were they that 
they dare not. Dear creatures ! they did not 
wish to plunge the country into another war ! 
They were afraid of these young rebels ; and for 
the sake of appearances, and to cultivate the 
friendship of those they feared, they stood afar 



Ku-KUx, 80 

off, and laughed and clapped their hands, and the 
urchins continually assailed me. They parted 
my coat-tails from the upper portion of the gar- 
ment. They rolled me in the mud, and sifted 
sand in my hair ! They put a split stick upon 
my nose, and turpentine-wax in my ears. But, 
thank God ! Mr. President, they could not seal 
my mouth • that it should not cry out against the 
horrible outrages inflicted upon the loyal people 
of the South by the Ku-Klux ! 

Is there no redress for patriotism ? Are loyal 
men to be thus outraged % K so, it were better 
for this Government that a mill-stone were tied 
in its coat-tail pocket, and it be sunk in a tan- 
vat ! 

Ku-Klux ! 

Your petitioner therefore prays that he may 
be appointed the head of a commission to go 
South at the expense of the working people of 
the North, escorted by a few thousand troops 
armed with mmiitions of war and presents for 



90 K%i-Klux. 

the negroes, that the white rebels wlio have 
bounced me so unmercifully may be punished, 
and the innocent contrabands rewarded for their 
generous defence of a loyal citizen. And your 
petitioner will ever pray, &c. 




CHAPTER XI. 



GOING TO THE CIRCUS. 




HAVE found a ^g-gig-giit for my gig-gig-girl, 
I have found a rare pup-pup-place now for fuf - 
f uf-f un ! 



I'll sh-sh-shingle my head of each curl, 
And bub-bub-buy a ticket for the circus when done ! 

I'll walk with my gig-gig-gig-girl in the tent. 
When the man with his sh-sh-show comes to town 

For to have lots of fuf -fuf -fun I am bent, 
And tit-tit-tit-to laugh at the tricks of the clown. 



My gig-gig-girl shall gig-go with me there. 
And sis-sis-sit by my side all the while ! 

And we'll shout and we'll coo like a pup-pup-pair 
Of mud turtle did-did-doves on a stile I 



92 Going to the Circus. 

We'll see tlie fui-fuf-fine horses go round. 
Like lightning inside the big rir-rir-rir-ring ! 

And laugh when the tit-tit-tumblers f uf -f uf -f all down, 
To bub-bub-bounce up again with a spring. 

And the woman wh-wh-what walks up the small wire, 
As an ant woo-woo-would walk up a string, 

As high as a sis-sis-steeple, or higher, 

Indeed its a mum-mum-most wonderful thing I 

We'll hear the Band sweetly pip-pip-pip-play, 
Most beautiful mum-mum-music and tunes. 

And stare at the tremendous did-did-display 
Of fuf-fuf-fuf-fine actors, horses, and buffoons I 





CHAPTER XII. 



AMONG THE ASTKOLOGISTS. 




E read in the newspapers that Mad- 
ame Ray, on Mott street, was a very 
learned woman, the seventh daugh- 
ter of a seventh daughter, and thith- 
er we repaired. Mott street is in 'New York city. 
It is delightfully situated between donkey-carts, 
dirty-faced children, and irregular-shaped dwell- 
ings. As for smells — well, a person should be 
suited there, as a separate and distinct smell 
came from around each house. 



u 



MDM. EAY, &C. 

A two-story brick house, green blinds in front, 
black walnut door-knob, yellow door two steps 



94 Among the Astrologists. 

from the ground, entrance immediately from the 
walk. There being no bell, we knocked. As 
we did not Imock very loud, there came no re- 
sponse, so we knocked again. 
" Mag-g-g-g-g ! The door ! " 

In obedience to a " C-sharp " voice, there came 
pattering downstairs two feet. The door opened 
slowly, and a red head belonging to a fi*eckle- 
faced, square-faced, fat-faced, grinning-faced, 
dirty-faced female girl of about twenty summers 
and somewhere near that many winters, inserted 
itself outward nigh as far as the shoulders. She 
was very muscular about the — the — the — the 
chest, and we thought some of turning back, but 
she asked : 

" Did yer knock ? " 

" To be s-s-s-sertainly ! Is Madame Ray in ? " 

"She is. Walk in." 

"We entered. The several-faced girl closed the 
door, which locked itself, and led the way up 
stairs. She opened the door, and said, " Recep- 



Among the Astrologists. 95 

tion-room ! " "We entered, and sat down. It 
was a small room, about twelve feet square. A 
three-ply carpet on the floor, two sofas, three 
chairs, a table, two steel-plate engravings, a small 
mirror, and a photograph of a big-whiskered 
man, completed the useful and ornamental furni- 
ture. 

From an adjoining room there came a sound 
of clashing dry-goods and rustling of crockery, 
and in two minutes or so the reddish-top called 
lis to see the object of our search. A well-fur- 
nished room about twelve by twenty. Brocatelle 
'curtains rather the worse for wear. A bureau 
on which was a pier-glass and a large bouquet. 
Side-table covered with books. On the wall 
hung a large printed and colored chart some 
three feet square ; on this chart were innumer- 
able figures of all colors, circles, triangles, signs, 
cosines, hieroglyphics, &c. On a dressing-case 
stood perfumery of several kinds ; while a gam- 
mon-board, a set of chess-men, and a pack of 



96 Among the Astrologists. 

cai'ds on a stand, showed that the occnpant wag 
evidently game. On a well-worn mohair-covered 
sofa sat, as we entered, Madame Kay, avIio arose 
very gracefully to receive us. She was alxMit 
forty-five years of age, red-faced, red-necked as 
far as wo could see — and that was far enough 
She had brown hair, fat fingei^s, fat face, and fat 
sides. Her dress was a morning-gown of red 
silk, and we set her down as the worst old talker 
in the business. 

" Good morninii:, fair strano^er ! " 

" Good morning, Madame ! '* 

" AVliat is the object of your visit this morn- 
ing?" 

" We came, Madame, to consult you as to tlie 
past, the present, and the futm-e. Having doubts 
in our mind as to what course to pursue, wo 
come to you for advice and connsel." 

" Ilave you faith 1 " 

" Exceeding great of it I " 

" Stranger, you have done well to consult me. 



Among the Astrologists. 97 

I know your past, and can read your future. I 
am gifted above all mortals, and will tell tliee 
truly. For all this I ask but one dollar in ad- 
vance. "Would you know more ? " 

"We handed her a $ on the Katanyan Bank. 
She returned it. We handed her a dollar on a 
New York Bank, which she took, and said : 

" The first bill is not good here. Look out, or 
sharjDers will put bad money on you ; *and that 
Kat-2XL-yan Bank is Western, and is not worth 
much here I " 

We looked at the "gay deceiver," folded it 
carefully, and laid it away, first thanking the 
Madame. As she knew worthless money, our 
faith in her power increased ! 

" In what year was you born, sir ? " 

" Don't know — am an orphan who never knew 
nothing much ! " 

" What is your birthday ? " 

" Don't know ; my parents left me their only 
child when I was a suckling ! " 



98 Among the Astrologists, 

" Poor boy I Let me look at your hand. (She 
looked.) Now on that chart place yonr finger on 
a red number. (We put it on 2.) Now on a 
green one. (We put it on 0.) Now on a blue 
one. (We picked out 8.) Now on a yellow one. 
(We picked out 4.) Now, in that circle, at the 
top, pick out a number — any one. (We put our 
finger on 11.) That will do ; now sit do^vn." 

We did as directed, when she said : 

" Nine times two are eighteen ; eight times 
four are thirty-two. The jQtav you were born 
was 1832, and it was in the eleventh month, or 
December. You first put your finger on 2, then 
on 11, which makes your birthday the 13th." 

As this was our birthday in reality, we felt a 
little curious to have her go on. She continued : 

" You don't look so old, but you be ! I can 
tell everything. Cut those cards. (We cut at 
the queen of diamonds.) You first loved a 
woman who was rich. She loved you, (cut 
again,) but she was foolish, and didn't marry 



Among the Astrologists. 99 

you. (Out again.) She married another, and 
often thinks of you, and is unhappy. (Cut 
again.) You married another woman. You 
have one child. It is a young child. (Cut 
again.) Yoii V\^ill have a second wife, and she 
will have two children — a boy and girl. You 
will be very happy all your life, except a little 
trouble for a year. Then you will be happy, 
and do well. Now draw ten cards out of this 
pack." We did so. She continued, as she 
looked them over one by one : 

" You have had much trouble in business, but 
you will come out all right before long. You 
are in business somewhere now, and making 
money. In a short time you will make more. 
You face up a long journey, but no danger. 
You are very lucky and independent. You cut 
the queen of hearts ; you will soon meet the one 
you love best of all. You have some enemies, 
but they are afraider of you than you be of 
them. One of them is a dark-complexioned man 



100 Among the Astrologists. 

with a scar on his face. He will try to kill you 
if you meet in the woods where he can't be seen. 
He is a coward, and you will not be afi-aid of 
him. The other enemy is a fat man who wants 
to rob you. He can't do it ; you have friends 
who won't let him. You o^vn land and machin- 
ery of some kind. You have an interest in some 
kind of a boat, which is in danger of being 
seized. You will have much property left you 
in a few years, and you are going to travel, and 
write books. Please open that red book on the 
stand, and hand it to me." 

"We opened the book as directed, when she 
continued : 

"You will be an old man, and have many 
friends when you die, and you will die in your 
own house. You will die in the parlor, on a bed 
so you can see the sun go down. You will have 
friends by you, and will die very easy — jnst like 
going to sleep. You will leave property to your 
family. Do you wish to ask me any questions ? " 



Among the Astrologists. 



101 



« I do." 

" Will it rain to-day ? " 

" "Will it rain ? That's a funny question ! — 
nothing to do with the matter ; but I don't think 
it will. Anything else ? " 

" Nothing, Madame ! Good morning ! " 

" Good morning, sir ! " 

And the red-haired girl showed us out. 






CHAPTEE XIII. 

THE EESTJLT OF MY COUETSHIP. 

ALWAYS was a basMul boy! 
Modesty wanted a depot, and used 
me ! But I loved the fair sex, and 
thought to marry, in time. Fmmy 
acknowledgments to make ; but, as gray hairs 
have bivouacked all over my head, it makes no 
difference if I do own up. 

I tried sparking, once ; it came nigh bursting 
me, and that idea was abandoned. Two years 
my lass-orated heart was like Mrff. Rachel's 
babies — without comforters. 

Then 1 grew lonesome. The sun didn't look 



The Result of my Courtship. 103 

so bright as it was. The moon looked speckled- 
like, as does a fellow's black pants after milking ! 
The grass wa'n't as green. The trees wa'n't as 
straight. The roosters, geese, turkeys, ducks, 
and other " feathered songsters of the glen," did 
not warble as sweetly as once ! 

My hair grew long, and it was because I was 
lonesome. I was like a tree in the woods. I 
had been blown over by my feelings, and if I 
didn't " lodge," I'd fall, sure pop ! 

Salina Jane took my eye. She was tall as the 
daughtei^ of Nathal, and more beautiful. Her 
father had been a rich man, and Salina Jane had 
a good figure — nigh onto $30,000, or less. Not 
being a slubberdegullion, the filthy dross had no 
chaiTQS for me. Salina Jane had. We looked 
at each other a few times. Mutuality was in the 
glances of each. I loved the fair Salina Jane. 
Salina Jane loved me, and I loved Sahna Jane. 

Says I, "May 11" 

Says she, " To be sure — and come early ! " 



104 The Besult of mij Courtship. 

I went, and she was there. 

It was night. The pale moon was up and 
doing. Tlie little cross-eyed stars were langhing 
at each other, and Salina Jane and I were in the 
parlor. It had a stove — and a lounge — and a 
clock — and a table — and a yellow dog under it 
— and a picture of IToah and his relatives mov- 
ing into their new boarding-house ! And it had 
a carpet — jmd lots of chairs — and an oil lamp — ■ 
and a picture of General Putnam backing his 
horse up a ledge of rocks. And it had in it 
Salina Jane and I ! Often went I there, and 
often was Salina Jane made happy by my com- 
ing. It was years ago, but I remember well. 
We got to lildng each other. Then it took 
deeper root, and we loved. 

We didn't do nothing — Salina Jane and I 
didn't — only court each other. AVo used to sit 
and hold on to each other's hands as though we 
were afraid of falling out ! Then we'd look at 
each other and smile a sweet little laugh, just as 



The Result of my Courtship, 105 

easy like I Then we'd move around on our Beats, 
and lean on to each other, and say nothing. 
When we said nothing, the folks in the house 
wouldn't hear us, and we didn't have an^iJiing to 
take back. 

Then the oil would give out, and it would be 
dark. Once I went to whisper in her ear, and 
she turned her head around, so that, by mistake, 
I whispered in her pretty mouth. This proved 
to be a good way to whisper, and we done it that 
way quite often ! 

Then we'd talk. I don't know what we talked 
about, but we talked. I didn't say much, nor 
Salina Jane didn't, but we said a little something 
every time I All winter I courted her. I 
thought of marrying her, but couldn't get to the 
sticking point no-way. Dear me, I was too bash- 
ful I 

One night Salina Jane was cutting rags for a 
carpet. I helped her rip up a pair of her dad's 
old trousers, and we courted while she cut. As 



106 The llcsult of my CourtsMp, 

the long strips of rags unwound thonisolvos from 
her sheai-s, I moved myself up \o lier. T ]nit my 
head in her hip. Salina Jane kept on cutting. T 
didn't know what to do, so I laid still, and she 
kept on cutting rags. I lay there and went to 
sleep. When I woke up, she had cut half my 
hair off by carelessness. I could stand that ; she 
was such a sweet girl, my Salina Jane was, so it 
didn't make mo mad. She wasn't as sweet as 
some girls, but she was good enough for a bright, 
intelligent boy as I was. 

Over a year we did thuslv. Three ni^lits in 
the week beside Sunday, till day broke, would 
we sit and court. It was sweet. Never knew of 
anvtliino; like it. Never courted before. Sorry 
we hadn't. It was so nice to hitch up to Salina 
Jane, and at last just touch her store-clotlies ! 
How it made our back-bones jingle when our 
hands met ! Never would have done so, if court- 
ing wasn't nice. Over another year Salina Jane 
and I courted. AYo med, the second year, to 



The Result of my CourtsMj). 1 07 

Btay in the honsc till midnight in the summer. 
Then I'd get up to go. We'd go out by the gate, 
and spend an hour there. Then I wonld leave 
for my humble roof. 

I used to 1)uy nice things for her — molasses 
candy, little candy hearts, peppermint-drops, and 
such good stuff ; apples, two for a cent apiece, 
and oranges without a speck of rotten in 'em ! 
They were all for Salina Jane, and I didn't care 
for the expense. 

Then I used to dream of her. I'd think my- 
self a fish, and Salina Jane and I would sport 
among the waters, and she'd chase me around by 
the stones and old roots, and under the soddy 
banks of the creelc where I thought we were. 
Then I'd dream we were little warbling birds, 
and sitting on a high limb of a tall tree together, 
sweetly singing ! Then I'd dream I was a hoi-se, 
drawing a nice carriage in which was Salina 
Jane ! Then, when, after working hard all da}^, 
I'd eat a hearty supper of pigs' feet, cold pota- 



108 The Result of my Courtship. 

toes, and such light food, and have a night-mare, 
and dream Saliiia Jane was on my chest, working 
bntter ! If I hadn't loved that girl, sho'd never 
laid so heavy on my heart ! 

Over two years 1 courted and she courted. It 
was my firet real experience. I always wanted 
to marry Salina Jane, but dare not ask her for 
fear she'd say No. Over two years I lavislicd on 
that gushing girl sweetmeats, new raisins, the 
fii-st green apples of the season, and }'Oung win- 
tergreens, with a prodigal hand. 

One day a platter-headed la^vyer came along. 
lie was just sweet flag, done up in sugar-coated 
cakes ! He saw Salina Jane afar off, and made 
for her. He was a gay and festered chap. He 
knew more than he'd forgot — a heap more. lie 
wore store-clothes on week-days ! I didn't. He 
had the advantage of me there. He hadn't 
brains enough to keep his hair straight, so it 
curled. Salina Jane liked curly hair ! 

He carried a watch — an Eg}^tian bull's-eye, 



The Result of my CouHshirp. 109 

plated with gold ! It was a big thing. I had no 
watch ! Salina Jane went back on me, and 
made for the watch. He had a roll of counter- 
feit money, and he showed her the end of it. 
She thought he was hefty about the purse, but he 
wasn't — ^nor about the head either ! He called 
with a carriage — livery carriage — and they 
went out riding. It was the night I was to sit 
u]) with Salina Jane. I went there to her domi- 
cile, but she had gone. 

"O Salina Jane, 
Don't do it again ! " 

I wrote in a bold hand on the 10x12 mirror 
which hung in the parlor, with a piece of tallow, 
and left the house. I went off to weep, and for 
two hours my affections oozed out of my eyes as 
water would ooze out of a wet sponge with a big 
man sitting on it ! She read the poetry, but 
didn't give no heed ! 

Poor Salina Jane ! She was deceived in that 
man, and / knew it. ' He wasn't what he was 



110 The Result of mij Courtship. 

cracked up to be, and he knew it ! Gradually, 
as sparks fly upward, slie left me to mourn, and I 
done it. Two years and three months, by the 
almanac, had I courted her, good and strong ; 
but she left honest worth for a plated watch and 
curly hair. 

I felt bad ! Whenever she'd sit on the fence, 
as she used to at times, after driving the pigs out 
of her folks' cornfield, I used to watcli her. 
"Wlien she'd get off the fence and go in the house, 
I'd go and sit on the spot she had sat on. For a 
while it calmed my heart and made me feel 
good. But she got thicker and thicker with her 
new lover, and, after a while, sitting on the fence 
failed to relieve me ! 

Well, matters grew worse. That fellow put in 
his best licks, and told Salina Jane all manner of 
foolish yarns — got her all manner of fancy jig- 
geretts for keepsakes, and I was left to mourn 
the loss of time, money, and affection, to say 
nothing of blasted hopes. How I'd courted her ! 



The Result of my Courtshvp, 111 

Day and night I had made love unto her, and 
she had led me, poor, guileless boy, as a butcher 
does a calf ! But it was soon to end. My egg- 
shell of happiness had squshed in my hand, and 
the yolk of it run all over my heart. 

In two weeks this fellow and Salina Jane were 
married. He was older than I — was bom first 
— but I spoke to hun about it just as though we 
were of the same age. Anger abided in my 
heart when I spoke to him. I demanded satis- 
faction — not the satisfaction I had looked for 
with Salina Jane as Mrs. " B." P., but the satis- 
faction a gentleman should expect. He looked 
at me kind of pityingly when I spoke of it, and 
said he'd pay me. 

" Pay for what ? " said I — " for a busted 
heart — for all my spare time — for my candy — 
my sweetmeats — my raisins — my big apples, 
and all the presents I have given Salina Jane 1 " 

" No,", said he ; " but Pll pay you for courting 
her up so nice ; it just saved me the trouble ! " 

And that was all the satisfaction I got. 




CHAPTEE XIY. 



THE CONFIDING WIDOW. 




N the train, and sitting in front of 
us, was a middle-aged lady, who all 
of a sudden turned about, and 
asked: 
" Are you a Baptist ? " 
" Yes ; I believe in the ^^^-theory ! " 
" Well, I thought so ; you look just like a Bap- 
tist minister I knew once, or at any rate I heerd 
preach in Eochester, New York, and I didn't 
know but you was him." 

" I never preached in HocJiesterP 
" Did you ever preach in Lockport ? " 



Tlie Confiding Widow. 113 

" Ko ; I never preached in any of the Eastern 
cities." 

"I suppose it keeps you busy preaching out 
here ! I've heern that there was some good 
preaching done here. I live in Eochester. I'm 
a Baptist, too, and I think that it is the best 
church in the world." 

" Yes, it is a good church — a large and pros- 
perous church." 

" Yes, it is. I've been visiting in Milwaukee 
and it seems as if there wa'n't much religion in 
Milwaukee ; and I'm so glad I met you ! Some- 
thin' told me you was a Baptist preacher, and 
I'm so glad I've met you! What may I call 
your name \ " 

" Knubson — ^Ezekiel Knubson." 

"I never heern tell of that name; but I've 
heerd of Mr. Spurgeon, an Englishman." 

" No relation, madam. I'm a iTorwegian." 

" Where is your field ? " 

" In La Crosse, Wisconsin." 



114 The Confiding Wldoio. 

" Oh, yes ! I've lieerii tell of that place. I've 
read iii the iiewspapei-s about a wicked man who 
lives there." 

" Thaf s the place." 

" Well, now, I'm real glad I met yon ! I 
alwa}^ meet somebody wherever I go. I have a 
girl twelve yeara old ; she j'ined the Baptist 
chm*ch last year. Her name is Matilda Park- 
hni-st. My name is Parkhui-st. My husband 
was Deacon Parldiui-st. He died last Spring. I 
am a widow now, and have g(^ a nice farm neai* 
Kochester. I had a house in Pochester, but I 
sold it for nine hundred dollars, and had the 
money stolen fix)m my pocket by somebody on 
the cai-s. I thinlc I know who stole it, but I 
can't tell, for I couldn't find him. A man saw 
me buy a ticket, and he came and sat in the seat 
with me. He said he was a Baptist, and I told 
him all about things. Pui*ty soon he said he had 
the nose-bleed, and he went out to wash his nose 
in a place where we stopped to wood, and the 



Tlie Confiding Widow, 115 

cars started before he got his nose washed ! He 
said I must look out for my money. And I told 
him it was safe in my pocket. Then he said, if 
I saw a red-headed man with a red moustache 
and a silver-headed cane come along, I must look 
out for him. Purty soon I saw a man with a red 
head and a mustache come through the cars, but 
he had left his cane. lie walked on past me — 
didn't hardly look at me nor mother. After he 
had gone out of the car I felt for my pocket- 
book, and it was gone. Then I told the conduc- 
tor I'd been robbed by the red-haired man, and 
he went and brought him back ; and I told the 
folks in the car what the Baptist man told me 
about looking out for such men, and how he put 
his handkerchief to his nose and went out, 'way 
back on the road. The red-headed man said he 
was a member of the Legislature, and he told his 
name, and said he wouldn't steal ; and he got 
mad at the conductor, and said I was an old fool, 
and all the folks laughed, and he said the man 



116 The Confiding Widow, ■' 

with the nose-bleed had robbed me,- and he made 
them believe it ; bjit I knew better, 'cause he 
was such a nice man, and he bought a lot of 
hickory-nut meats and put them in my pocket 
for me, and I've got some yet. Won't you have 
some, Brother Knubson ? " 

" All, thank you ; just a few." 

" And you never got your money % " 

" No. Ain't it a shame, now ! " 

"And your girl, Matilda — she joined the 
church % " 

" Yes ; last year she was baptized." 

" Where was she baptized ? " 

" In the river." 

" Ah ! What month was she baptized in ? " 

" In May — on the fourteenth day of May." 

" Well, May is a good month to be baptized 
in." 

" Yes, so it is. And Matilda so enjoyed it ! 
After she was converted she wi'it some verses 



The Confiding Widow. 117 

about her father's death. Leinme see — ^yes- 
no — ^yes, this was the way they begin : 

♦' ' Dear father, you had to die 
Before I was but eleven, 
And I am^goin now to try 

To meet you up in Heaven. 

That was the first verse : 

" ' What made you go away, 

And leave me here behind you ? 
But I have been converted 

And some day will come and find you.' 

That was the second verse. There was three. 



(( ( 



And now IVe lost my father, 
And I haven't any brother, 
And as you have gone to Heaven 
I'll have to stay with mother ! ' " 

This was the last verse. Matilda has writ a 
good many verses. I wish I had some for yon to 
read ! She writ a hymn, but I can't sing it with- 
out somebody to start it. [We offered to start it, 
but she had forgotten the words.] I never could 



118 The Confiding Widow. 

sing, unless my husband, Deacon Parldiurst, 
started it. lie was a powerful starter! Didn't 
you never hear of him ? lie made stickin'-salve, 
and had a big farm. lie w^as a good man, too. 
lie never scolded back when I scolded." 

" Did he die ? " 

" Law, yes ! and I'm his widow. He died one 
night, as easy ! " 

" AVas he resigned ? " 

" Oh, yes ; he was one of the willingest men to 
die I ever seen ! " 

" / have no doiibt of it ! And you have not 
married again % " 




CHAP. xy. 



TO A BEIGHT-EYED MAIDEN. 




|HEN the lamp low do#ti is turned, 
And at your feet a lover "lies " 
Telling how his love is spumed — 
How his heart for you now dies ! 

Watch his eye — read it right. 
Treacherous is its changing light. 



"When he pleads, and says his sorrow 
Will be greater than can be borne; 
Bid him wait — perhaps to-morrow 
Will bring to each a different mom. 
Watch his eye — read it right — 
Test his love for you to-night. 



120 To a Bright-eyed Maiden, 

When lie talks of love and wedlock — 

OfEers you liis heart and hand ; 
Know ye that each are honest — 

His may be siege most boldly planned ! 
Watch his eye — read it right — 
Many a maiden lost to-night ! 



Is he true and noble -hearted ? 

Learn this, maiden, ere you wed — 
Else you sorrow tiU the dawning 
Of the day beyond the Dead 1 

Search his heart — read it right — 
Joy or sorrow from to-night I 



Many prizes may be offered — 

Many traps to catch your beauty ; 
Many gifts in wordi be proffered — 
Gently maiden — life's a duty^ 

Answer not — another night 
You may read by clearer light. 

When you know he's true and noble, 

Look forever in his eyes. 
If your lieart then bids you love him, 
Live and love — enjoy the prize. 

Trust him ever — bless the night 
You learned to read his heart aright. 




" Tavern's all full," said the clerMst as he looked at Clorinda, — See page 



CHAPTER XVI. 



EXPERIENCE JN BOSTON AT THE PEACE BANJOREE. 




E took her there — Clorinda Magwil- 
ligaii, chief daughter and delayed 
spinster of the house of Magwilli- 
gan, of Magwilligansville. 
We have known Clorinda long. She was a 
tall girl, and meant it. All tall girls mean it. 
They mean to be long for this world. So did 
Clorinda. Years ago we loyed her. Twenty 
years ago we climbed up about her neck and 
hung a few lusciousary kisses on her triumphant 
lips. And when her eyes beheld the sweet glory 
of our coming down past the barn where the 
6 



122 In Boston at the Peace Banjoree, 

cows were milked by Clorinda, as she sat squat- 
ted on a one-legged stool, tlie eyeliglit of her 
aforesaid eyes would glimmer, the freckles on 
her face would seem illuminated, and she'd 
always give us a kiss, milk or no milk. 

She was a healthy kissist, full of gentle and 
stimulating vigoi . 

Did you ever kiss a girl and fairly hanker for 
more ? We loved her, and she loved back. We 
planted kisses, and love sprouted till the branches 
thereof made a grove under which we took 
refuge. 

Clorinda heard of the Peace Banjoree in Bos- 
ton. She wanted to go. We took her there. 
Went on an excui^sion tour. Weather hotter 
than making tomato pickles. We rode in the 
cai-s and on a boat, then went on foot. Clori!:ida 
wears No. 7s, small. She had undei*standing to 
let. 

Gracious ! but didn't she sling style ! Such a 
Grecian bend ! And her waterfall — right on 



In Boston at the Peace Banjoree, 123 

the upper end of her head, like froth on soda- 
water. And a bonnet twice the size of a postage- 
stamp — a three-cent one at that! And a dress 
whose trail ontrivalled the lateral extension of the 
peacock, and more grandly gorgeous ! 

We put up at a hotel about ten minutes. 
" Tavern's all full," said the clerkist, as he looked 
at Clorinda. She was a tower — that is, we 
looked up to her. She said, "Move on." We 
walked to another hotel, asked the same question, 
and the same clerk said they was all full. Then 
he told us to go to the " Tremont." There we 
went. Walked afoot. Went straight ahead on 
a curve. Came to the " Tremont." The same 
clerk was there. Said he was full. And he 
looked at Clorinda. Then he told us to go to the 
"American." So we patted it around there. 
Saw the saxtie clerk. He said they was all full. 
Told us to go to the " Parker House," and we 
started to find it, but couldn't do it. Come to 
find out, 'twas the " Parker House " we had en- 



124 In Boston at the Peace Banjoree. 

tered every time ; and that clerk knew, when he 
told us to find the house we were in, the streets 
were so dyrned crooked we couldn't ! Clorinda 
and I moved on. We walked all over the city, 
on the same street. "We asked a policeman 
where was a hotel, did he know ? And he said 
there wa'n't none, for it was Banjoree week. He 
asked if we had heard the big organ, or seen Gil- 
more ? We said No. We went to find O. and 
G., the twin celebrities of Boston. We went up 
to Bunker Hill Monument. Didn't know but 
Clorinda and us could bunk there. But the 
Monument was all taken up. Somebody told us 
that Warren fell over there. We went to see, 
but he had got up and gone I 

Then we went to Breed's Hill. We wanted to 
see Grant, and, knowing his love for dogs, 
thouo:ht to find him at Breed's ! But he wa'n't 
there ; a Boston Peace Banjoree Yankee had 
hired him for a tobacco-sign ! So we didn't 
Imow which one was Grant, they were so plenty ! 



In Boston at the Peace JBanjoree. 125 

Tramping around, Clorinda blistered her feet. 
She was not nsed to walking. She was brought 
tip in Khode Island, and hadn't room to turn her 
feet. "We couldn't walk, so we stood still till the 
Coliseum came around. 

It was a big thing. Clorinda got all jammed 
up. She was made thinner nor a lath. When I 
hugged her, it seemed like squeezing a paper- 
folder. But she was good ! We heard the big 
organ. We saw Gilmore counting his money. 
Hotel accommodations being out of the question, 
we anchored under a tree. Country taverns 
don't contain too much ! After Clorinda had 
her head blowed full of sweet discordancies and 
St. Yitus' melodies, I tooli her down on the 
Common, and paid five dollars for an hour 
in the arms of Morpheus. Clorinda was there 
too. 

We had a fine supper — two peanuts and a 
boiled bean split. Only a dollar ! And then we 
had refreshments — two pints of water, with yel- 



126 In Boston at the Peace Banjoree. 

low paper in for lemonade, at two shillings a 
glass. 

And such a breakfast — soup made from the 
back of a postage-stamp ! I had to take Clorin- 
da off that diet ; she was getting fat. Only cost 
twenty-eight dollars a day to see the big organ 
and Deacon Gilmore, chief of the Boston ban- 
ditti ! 

Clorinda was sweet, for certain ! I filled her 
full of molasses-candy and gingerbread the first 
day, but the stamps gave out. They called it a 
Peace Jubilee, and took the last piece I had — 
except Clorinda. But we saw the Banjoree, and 
shall die happy, if not sooner. Clorinda was de- 
moralized. Some wretch sat down on her band- 
box. It caved in, and up went her bonnet. 

But we saw the Peace Banjoree, and Gilmore, 
and the big organ. Clorinda had her feet trod 
on in the crowd more nor a thousand times. I 
thought they were her tally-books. And she lost 
her trail. I'm sorry about that ! But I didn't 



In Boston at the Peace Banjoree. 127 

lose Clorinda. I looked up to her so much, it 
was no trouble to look her up ! 

Clorinda never was so badly jammed up. I 
think she was hugged by three thousand men 
whose habits were good, and by seventeen thou- 
sand whose habits were t'otherwise. She was 
squeezened out flat one way, and squeezened up 
flat t'other way. And she never would have 
been so long in the first place, if it had not been 
for the huggings I had given her when she was 
little. When you see a little short, fat girl, it is 
a sign she has not been properly hugged. If she 
had, it would have squeezed her up taller ! But 
then, we saw the Peace Jamboree, and we heard 
the music. And such music ! It seemed as if 
all the fiddlers, and feline-intestine scrapers, and 
mashers of base drums, and blowers through 
brass instruments, had all the blacksmith-shops, 
tin horns, dogs with kettles tied to their tails, 
children who had partaken of too much small- 
beer, men with the toothache, cats on wood sheds, 



128 In Boston at the Peace Banjoree, 

serenaders on a bender, fire-crackers, pistols, mus- 
kets, rat-traps on a drunk, music run mad, and 
harmony badly bust, had contrived on this occa- 
sion to fill Clorinda's ear with the most unmiti- 
gated doings ! — and had succeeded. Clorinda 
had so much in her ear, that I could not .whisper 
love in it in a fortnic^ht. I bouMit a tin horn 
and whispered through that. But it was no use. 

The only way I could bring her to her senses, 
or tone her auricular appurtenances down to 
their original condition, was to seat her on a rail- 
road engine and let her whistle it six hours a day 
until she recovered. But she has not been good- 
natured a day since. That bran-new frock with 
streaks up and down it, is all skurypt, till the 
continuation of her trail resembles a garbage-cart 
struck by lightning while blessed with a full 
load. 

And that little bonnet she had — a hundred and 
sixteen dollars' worth of style and ten cents' 
worth of fabric ! Oh, I guess not ! Four firkins 



In Boston at the Peace Banjoree. 129 

of butter to buy a bonnet, besides the other fir- 
Idns disposed of to purchase other wardrobe for 
Clorinda. You see, she was a dairyman's daugh- 
ter ! Linked sweetness long drawn out, or but- 
ter long a-coming ! And that little ridicule she 
had to carry powder, white chalk, and red doin's, 
and those little scrambled hair-things what they 
wear, and some other devices, contmuations, and 
inventions not enumerated — somebody sat down 
on it, and when they rose, it resembled a sum in 
multiplication attempted by a boy who did not 
know how ! 

Clorinda says Peace Jamborees are a humbug 
We reached her home, the Lord only knows how. 
The Banjoree busted my cash, exhausted my pa- 
tience, destroyed my raiment, upset my health, 
deprived me of rest. During all the time it con- 
tinued, Clorinda and I got no sleep except when 
I took her down on the Common, where we re- 
posed like two doves with but a single stamp, two 
sweethearts piled as one, under the shadow of a 



130 In Boston at the Peace Banjoree. 

tree which loomed up against the State House. 
I wanted them to let me rock Clorinda to sleep 
in the cradle of liberty, but thej said the cradle 
was full. 

I don't want her photograph taken now. It 
ain't purtj. She don't look good-natured. I 
don't believe her picture would call sweetness 
back to sour milk. I felt very sad about it. 
The juice of gladness doth not abound in my 
heart. The permeating sap of contentment 
rangeth not around my gizzard, as was its wont. 
I left Clorinda at the house of her paternal de- 
rivative, and returned, put on my good clothes, 
and went to see her. But she was not seeable. 
She was getting fixed. So I sat myself down 
under her window, and plaintively I sighed 
out : 

" Oh, Clorinda, 'Rinda, 'Einda, draw nigh — 
do ! " 

But she wouldn't. And. then the pale moon 
scooted along, and I said : 



In Boston at the Peace Banjoree. 131 

" Oh, moon, moonie, moonie, pity my woe — do, 
just once ! " 

But he wouldn't. And a little star followed 
the moon like a poodle-dog follows a little girl, 
and I said : 

" Oh, star, starie, starie, twinkle me one — do 
come and pin my love onto 'Kinda's heart ! " 

But nary a twinkle. And a cloud hegiraed 
overhead, seeming not to care a dyrn for my 
trouble ; and in the agony of my bitterness I 
sank back upon the grass, and said : 

" Oh, cloud, cloudie, flying cloudie, cloud me 
no more, for my heart can't stand it ! " 

And I called again to Clorinda, and she would 
not come. And it is all on accoimt of the Peace 
Jamboree. She was the best-natured girl on the 
creek till this transpired. She was sweeter than 
shrimps, or a free ride to a picnic. But, alas ! 
her sweetness is departed. What with the jam- 
ming and the cramming, the eating of old baked 
beans, second-hand peanuts, and gingerbread 



132 In Boston at the Peace Banjoree. 

whereon many an army of iiies had camped, she 
wasn't well ! 

She says, l^o more excursion for her ! She 
did not like the Hub. She prefers to remain in 
the dignity of her own dqmicile, to take care of 
the little doings thereof ; so she goeth not to 
Boston for another spree, not even to see the 
Colisenm, or the big organ, or the crooked 
streets, or Gilmore, or any of them things ; but 
she goeth to bed in madness and in sadnes^ but 
riot in any gladness. 

Such is Clorinda ; while I am disconsolate, 
used up, out of cash. But, thank the Lord, I 
have helped Gilmore, have an interest in the 
Coliseum, heard the big organ, and have been to 
Boston ! 





CHAPTER XYII. 




MY WIDOW IN THE' PAKK. 

IGHT down there — ^jiist where it was 
last year. 

O Park ! Wlij couldn't you 
move away, that I be not moved by 
harrowing recallings in \dew of you ? Confound 
you, but memory lingers with a fellow like a 
hole in his hat-band. 

All day it had rained like much thunder, and 
the wet \vinds blew moistness all over the win- 
dow and the soul. It was one of them days 
when a person feels just like it, and sometimes 
more so. So did I. 



134 My Widow in the Park. 

And I read in the newspaper all the political, 
religical, financical, nonsensical, and litterical 
articles it had. Then the advertisements. And 
this one : 

" A young widow, with a loving heart and 
yearning soul, wishes to form the acquaintance 
of a nice gentleman who will love her. A good- 
looking man preferred. Address, appointing an 
interview, Eosa Morgan, Post-office." • 

That's me! Why not? I looked into the 
mirror — no reflections. Hair turning gray — but 
gray is becoming more fashionable than blue! 
Form, a little bit on the stoop — but Hogarth says 
a curve is a line of beauty. Not many wrinkles 
in the face — only ninety to the square inch — but 
what is wrinkles, when a widow is in the way ? 
And a wig — but thus we encourage industry, and 
then we thi'ive. 

So we wrote unto her, saying things as she re- 



My Widow in the Park. 135 

posed her eyes onto and drank into her trump of 
hearts. She answered back again. So did we. 
And missives passed between ns — postage-j)aid. 
And the notes were on brass-momited or gilt- 
edged paper, to betoken eclatness of design and 
high-bloodness of rank and style. 

At last, oh ! at last. Wlien you have a bite, 
pull up. She, our Rosa, wanted an interview. 
She wrote as if we were much to her in the spirit 
and in the flesh. Greeting ! We read her gush- 
ingness, for it yearned all over the brass-mounted 
paper she performed her writing onto. 

So we yearned. We wrote epistles. We 
made little note to her. We asked her to come 
and meet us in the Park. Union Square Park. 

At eight P.M. Sunday night. Pleasant. In- 
deed, mooney. At the Fifteenth street-entrance. 
Broadway side. And if she held our letter in 
her hand when she arrived, she would be known. 
And greeted. And loved. And why not? 
Wliat is Park, and man, and folks for ? 



136 My Widow in the ParJc. 

She answered Yes. She put a postscript to 
her catalogue of affections, wliich read : 

" P. S.— I'll be there, sure. With the letter in 
left hand. Already I love you. I'll be there. 

" EOSA." 

Happy ! As a clam with a new toothpick. 
"Would she come ? Would a woman fool a fel- 
low ? They never have yet ! 

So we fixed. Lie still, wriggling heart ! Why 
those flutters, when the time will come without ? 
We took a bath and paddled in the water an 
hour, dreaming of our Rosa. We had our wig 
brushed and ears curled. And our face shaved 
two layers deep below the skin. We looked rare 
and high-toned I Then we mounted a new hat 
over our head. Put on a blue neck-tie with ma- 
roon trimmings. A red silk undershirt like a 
lap-dog. A frilled shirt with birttons behind, so 
as not to unquilt the front and discomfit the 



My Widow in the Park. ' 137 

starch thereon. And we put onto us sich a pair 
of lily-white linen pants, thin and cool. And we 
strode forth twenty minutes before the appointed 
time. We sat upon the bench. Our heart ! 
Have you ever been there ? Did you ever wait 
for your sweetheart, or one who might be, until 
your heart became like a roasted " shoo-fly " for 
uneasiness % Then come in ! 

We sat on the bench. A very hard bench for 
thin pants. Uneasy lies the head that wears a 
bench ! ^ 

People j)assed both ways. The mosquitoes 
were active. They bored pneumatic tunnels into 
our rheumatic legs till we dogmatically cursed 
them much. They bit, and we slapped. We 
slapped, and they bit. They bored into our knee- 
pans, into our thighlets, and all up and down the 
match-shaped fatness of our calves. We endured 
torture, and killed the cusses by dozens. We 
slapped them till folks thought we were patting 
the juba, and till our white linen was like unto a 



loS My Wulow in the Park. 

qiiaiVs bosom filled with shot, aiul a i*cd-}>cpper 
box-cover on the le^ik. 

We killed them, and smeared their corpses 
over our loirs like embividerv. AVe killed them 
at their meals, till the white pants were i*cd- 
lleeked with human gore. 

O Uosa ! Rosa ! whv dostest not eome, if thou 
comest ever i Ivnowest thou not that it becom- 
eth thee to eome scxmi i AVhy keep lover c^n a 
hard seat, killing mosquitoes and spoiling bi*eeeh- 
es ? But we forgive thee, sweet svlphess 1 

At last ! She eamo. Twenty minutes late. 
Forty minutes mosquitcvkilling ! Now kx>k at 
our pants I AVliat a specledation to be in ! She 
had our letter in her left hand. It was her. O 
Jupiter ! — Jupe, desert us not ! 

But she ^vas a eharmer. Five feet ten inches 
high. Slim as a rail. Forty-nine yeai*s old, if a 
day. And her face looked like that of a tniined 
cat — decidedly catankei*ous. She had her mouth 
in a prim. Her eyebi*0W3 blacked, and lips 



My Widov) m the Pwrh. 130 

painted with vcnriilion. And a little yaller j>ara- 
Bol. And a No. 7 hoot. IJut sho waB a woman ! 

We weakened — then rallied and braecjd up. 

"Ah! good evening! Ho glad! J low good 
t/> eonie I Conld have waited for hourn. I^et \w> 
walk here arjd there. Let ns go heiu^e, to nee 
how w(;nien dress and men govern. Come, J^^na, 
Bweet!" And we ventured out from the Park. 
Why we(jp when taking medieine? Oh, yourig 
widow — with a yearning heart ! Sainted wether 
of the lloek, art thou she \ J>ut we pratthid 
sweetly. We reaehed up to her arm. Wc were 
BO glad she was niee ! We feared she might }>o 
a squash- waisted nymph of aliout ninci hundred. 
Hearts do always find their mates, and that is 
what she trjld us. 

Folks laughed as wc reached up to her. She 
was so tall, and wc a little, short, fat one — she 
the long, and wc the short of it ! Oh, advertise- 
ment of yearning young widow wanting a man 
to love! Our thermometer left us — we grew 



140 My Widow in the Parle. 

rich — linked sweetness drawn out too long — and 
we wilted. 

It was a pretty picture — a fine, lengthy view. 
We walked toward her home. We wanted to, 
but our heart failed us, on turtle-doving this tad- 
pole beside us ; so we invited her to a saloonery 
of ice-cream benevolence. We seated her on a 
chair. Called for two vanillas, large ! Then she 
excused us for a moment, while we went to speak 
to a friend at the door. We gave a waiter a dol- 
lar, thinking that would pay for cooling her off. 
We saw her through the window enjoying it, and 
fled like Moses away from the Egyptians. Some 
day we shall dare to look in to see if she is there 
yet, or if she has found a lover. 




CHAPTEE XYIII. 



PARIS CLUB ROOMS. 




|HE poor of 'New York we leave 
behind to-iiight, for there is nothing 
attractive in the garb of necessity 
or misfortune, nor is there much to 
entice in the watery eyes and watery potatoes, 
the hard floor and hard bread, the whining voice 
or crealdng hinges, the sparred countenances and 
ragged clothes, the dark rooms and dark life of 
those who are poor as the acme of poverty, and 
whose life is of so little account that their death 
and burial is almost unnoticed, except by the 
proper authorities. 

Leave them all behind to-night. 



142 ^^Paris Club RoomsP 

The laihps are again lit. By the thousand 
tliey gleam and glimmer everywhere. To the 
right and left — up and down Broadway, to the 
right hand and left hand, as far as the eye can 
reach, they stand, better guardians of the night 
than many of the police officers. 

Many a man in ITew York owes his life to the 
street-lamps, the steady glare of which have more 
terror in them for evil-doers than a score of 
police-clubs. The lamps never have to go in to 
drink, or toast their shins before the fire in some 
curious place around the corner, downstairs. 

" Carriage, gentlemen ? " 

" Well, yes ! Do you know where the new 
Paris Club Kooms are ? " 

"No." 

" Drive to ISTo. — East Forty-second street. 
And say — drive around by Eiley's first." 

" All right ! " 

And away we go up Broadway to Eighth street 
— down Eighth, and then to the right. How the 



^^Paris Club BoomsP 143 

wheels rumble over the cold pave ! The horses 
are fast ; the click of their steel-shod feet on the 
stones evokes sparks as we dash ahead. The car- 
riage is well cushioned, and rides easy. We pull 
the furs about our ears, draw the robes over our 
knees, and hurry on. Who cares for carriao-es ? 
■\Vlio rides in all these cars, carts, carriages, 
cabriolets, and coupees ? Somebody! Where 
do they live ? Somewhere ! Where are they all 
hurrying? Somewhere— to the theatre— to the 
cars— the boats— to go from home— to return- 
to church— to fill some engagement— to any- 
wheres and ever}^wheres. 

Here is Eiley's ! One of our party wants a 
choice Havana ; another wants a little sherry ; 
another wants to see his friends fixed. And 
away we go again ! Still lamps, gaslight, car- 
riages, and pedestrians. Kow to the right— to 
the left— to the right over beyond the haunted 
cellar and its murder-scenes. 

We stop before a four-story brown-stone front, 



144 ^^ Paris Cliib Booms ^ 

handsomely-planned dwelling. " Ko one at 
home ? " Wait. 

" Driver, it is now a quarter past eight. 
Return here at thi-ee in the morning — sharp ! " 

"Ay, ay, sir." And the carriage rumbles 
away where the horses can rest and the driver 
keep warm ; for the establishment is now under 
pay, subject to order. 

It i^ not a year since these club-rooms were 
opened. Comparatively few of ISTew York peo- 
ple know of them. There is much done in New 
York no one laiows of ! 

Up the wide stairs — three of us. A silver 
bell-pull. All ig dark and quiet. A pull on the 
bell. Listen ! Not a tinkle is heard. " Pull 
agam 1 " Ko ; once is enough. A bolt is with- 
drawn — a light chain rattles- — a door swings open 
— a stqp is heard — a little wicket in the outer 
door is raised — the face of a stout black man 
looks out, but the door does not open. 

" All right — 1 " 



^'Paris Club RoomsP 145 

" Certainly, gentlemen ! " 

The wicket closes. All is dark. Another bolt 
is withdrawn, and the large iron door, painted to 
resemble rosewood, opens silently. The ebony 
waiter steps back. " Good evening, gentle- 
men ! " We enter silently. The door swings to 
— a large bolt returns to its socket. The inner 
door, also of iron, swings open — we pass in — that 
swings to and is bolted, and we are in the new 
Paris Club Hooms. 

To the left, into a reception-room. Hat, furs, 
overcoat, and overshoes are handed to a waiter 
who will be there when we want them again. 
IIow elco-ant the room ! A errate full of red 
coals throws out a generous warmth. A chestnut 
side-board in one corner of the room is covered 
with glasses and decanters. The polite door- 
tender invites us to help ourselves. We sit by 
the grate and are blessed with the grateful heat. 
While the door-tender disappears — we see him 
leave the room — we listen to hear his footfall ; 



14G ^'Paris Clicb Eoo'insy 

the soft carpets are too much for us — the doors 
open too silently. We would not know but he 
stood outside the reception-room door, waiting in 
the hall like a black statue. 

In a moment or two he returns. 

" Gentlemen, whenever you are ready ! " 

" All right ! " 

"We arise and follow him. How silently the 
doors open ! IIow the carpets yield to pressure 
of the foot ! IN^ot a bit of noise — no more than 
if this were a deserted grave. Out in the hall — ■ 
to the end thereof. Another door opens, as 
leaves float in the air, and we enter the salon 
proper. 

What a splendid room ! Full forty feet 
square. Three grates on three sides of the room 
lend a cheerful look. The carpets are of the 
softest texture ! The chandeliers are of magnifi- 
cent pattern and generous proportions, two score 
of gas-burners making the room light as day. 
And the paintings on the wall? -decidedly 



^^ Paris Club Rooms. ^^ 147 

French in all that makes up the novel, the strik- 
ing and suggestive ! In the centre of the room 
is a faro-table, around which twenty men are sit- 
ting and standing at play. In the right-hand 
corner is a roulette-table, around which excited 
persons are betting on the red or black. On the 
left side of the room are smaller tables for 
poker, whist, cribbage, vintugn, and other games. 
There are five doors to the room besides the one 
at which we entered. There are half a dozen 
sofas, several easy-chairs, four tete-a-tetes, and a 
splendid side-board well stocked with the choicest 
wines, brandies, liquors, and cigars in the city. 
Everything denotes extravagance and excellent 
taste for furnishing. The furniture is of the 
most expensive make and elegant design. The 
picture-frames are of solid rosewood. The room 
is warm, and more than comfortable. And how 
still it is ! No introduction is needed, though we 
introduce our friends to one of the proprietors, 
7 



148 ''Paris Club Roomsr 

to whom we are introduced by a card and private 
note. 

" Welcome, gentlemen ! Make yourselves at 
home ; and if anything be lacking for your com- 
fort, it shall be sent for ! " 

"Ah! thanks!" 

Half a dozen really beautiful ladies are sit- 
ting around the room, or lounging idly at the 
tables. One of them is crocheting a beautiful 
lap-robe, which in a few days will astonish peo- 
ple on the avenues. All are beautiful, painted, 
dressed, and accomplished, as the word goes. 
There are books ; here is a guitar ; here are 
silver-mounted pistols, silver goblets, riding- 
whips, and silver spurs hanging over a mantle. 

What will you do % Would you smoke ? 
Here is a genuine Havana. Are you thirsty ? 
Here is wine, water, &c. Would you play faro ? 
Here is room — always room. Would you make 
up a party at poker ? Here are cards, table, 
ivory checks, and partners. Would you play 



'''•Paris Chib RoomsP 149 

cribbage ? Here are cards, cribbage-board, and 
partners, either male or female. Would you sit 
by the fire and warm ? IN'o need of that, for the 
room is just right. Would you talk with one of 
the young ladies % Here is a tete-a-tete, or a 
sofa ; yonder, in the corner, are vacant chairs ; 
and here is a charming young lady who speaks 
French, Italian, Spanish, and English. She can 
tell you of travel, of cities, of games, of watering- 
places, and of people. Would you hear music 
from the guitar ? It is but a step into another 
room, and you can remain there as long or short 
a time as you please, and she will play some low- 
toned, gentle tune for you ; and if your head 
aches, hers are the fingers which will try and 
still the throbbing temple. . Are you hungry ? 
Step this way, into the lunch-room. Here are 
oysters, cold chicken, sandwiches, ale, &c., &c. ; 
or you can wait till one o'clock, for supper. All 
is free — that is, in the eating and drinking Ime. 
You can play or not, as you choose. You can 



150 ^^ Paris Club Boo7rs,^^ 

drink, smoke, or eat — just as you please. It 
costs nothing. The proprietor presses yon to try 
a cigar. The young lady you are talking with 
insists on your drinking a glass of wine with her 
— then another — then another. 

How still it is ! 

!N"o loud talk — no profanity. At times an 
excited man at the faro-table utters a loud excla- 
mation. The dealer looks up at him. A negro 
waiter asks him what he will have. lie calls for 
a glass of liquor, and all is still again. Or some 
one asks the case-keeper what cards are dead 
and what cards are yet to be dealt out. Or some 
one wants another stock of " chips," as the 
round, flat ivory checks, about the size of half- 
dollar silver pieces, are called. Or some man 
ejaculates, " Thunder ! " as he loses fifty or a 
hundred dollars. But, for all that, there is no 
noise. 

Who are these men and women ? 

ISTever mind who ! The women are somebody 



^^Paris Club liooms.^^ 151 

— at least, they were somebody till they came 
here. They go to summer watering-places as 
somebody. They know enough of the world to 
convince you that they are somebody ; but their 
names — ah ! we forget to inquire ! 

" And the men ? " Ah, no ! people don't tell 
all they know. Some of these men are " sports," 
who live by gambling. Some of them are mer- 
chants, business men, politicans, office-holders, 
speculators, and a few curiosity-students like our- 
self. 

" What do they come here for ? " 

What makes the wind blow — water run down- 
hill — smoke ascend — men love women — women 
love men? We can't tell you? Most of them 
come here to gamble — to make or lose money 
faster than by legitimate business. We meet 
some of these men on Wall street — in the Cus- 
tom-House. We saw three of those here to- 
night, on the floor of Congress lately. If you 
would learn their names, come here as we came, 



152 ^^PaHs Ohib RoomsP 

and see for yourself. It is easy to come, after 
you know tlie ropes 1 

Everything is extravagance and dissipation. 
You can get more here than we have yet spoken 
of, if you have money and desire. There m-e 
private rooms. Men meet here to drink wine 
and devise means to caiTy elections, to control 
the people, to manipulate railroad stock — to 
affect the market, to study on some new road to 
wealth. After the plans are laid, a few hmi- 
dreds are lost or won at the gaming-tables ; and 
in the early morn, after a supper fit for the gods, 
home is sought. 

This is a modern gambling-house. There is 
nothing wanting to make attractive this resort of 
those who have money. Poor people have no 
business here. The handsome young ladies who 
are so agreeable, get a good living and wear the 
finest of clothing every day. There are from six 
to ten of these beauties here every night. They 
hail from other cities — are the creme de la creme 



^' Paris Club Rooms)' 153 

of their sisterhood — adepts in cunning and all 
the arts to win man from his good resolutions, 
and to entice money from him. They play 
poker, whist, or other games, with the coolness 
and dexterity of an expert, and are so very 
interesting that a man is nearly willing to pass 
through the gate to perdition if she but open it 
for him, and, with a smile and languid eye, will 
start him on the downward road. 

There is a selectness about this modern gam- 
bling-house. ISTone but men who know their 
business ever enter here. The owners of this 
palace are polite, and seemingly generous. The 
best of everything is set before the guest — wines, 
food, and cigars. One o'clock at night is the 
hour for a most sumptuous repast, when all the 
delicacies of the season are served in a long 
dining-room, where can sit forty-four guests at 
the table. You get here the most tempting 
roasts, the fattest broiled quail and other birds, 
the finest oysters, fruits in and out of season, 



154 ^^ Paris Club Rooms^ 

coffee of rare flavor, champagne of exquisite 
memory — all in abundance, served by tlie most 
attentive waiters. Yon can eat alone, or by the 
side of a lady ; or yon can sit outside, listen to 
the rattle of knives, forks, spoons, and dishes, the 
pop of champagne-corks, and the jokes ; for every 
one has a license to say a good thing, if he but 
knows how, where, and when. For all this lux- 
ury there is no price charged. You return to 
the salon and begin again, or go home, as you 
please. 

It is now two o'clock. There is a lull in the 
ivory storm. Let us try the " Tiger," as faro is 
called. Here is the table — a long mahogany 
affair, covered with green velvet, on which are 
glued thirteen cards — from ace to Inng, in two 
rows, six in each row, with the seven-spot by 
itself, at the end. 

Behind this table sits the " dealer," a quick- 
eyed, quick-fingered, cool-nerved man, who seems 
like a machine in his look and motions. We will 



^^ Paris Clxih Rooms .^^ 155 

play a little, for it is not polite to run the house. 
At the right hand of the dealer, on the table, is a 
box filled with stacks of ivory checks, piled up in 
stacks like little plates. They are about the size 
of a silver dollar, if our readers can remember 
what size that is. They are white, red, blue, 
each color denoting different value. The white 
ones are worth a dollar each ; the red ones are 
worth ^YQ dollars each ; the blue ones are worth 
fifty dollars each. For fifty dollars he hands us 
fifty of these white checks, and puts the green- 
backs into a drawer beside him under the table- 
top. We sit down by the table ; a half-dozen 
men sit beside us, each with a stack of chips, 
white, red, or blue, as the purse of the player, or 
his inclination, calls for. The keen-eyed dealer 
opposite the table in front of us takes a full pack 
of cards, puts them in a silver box with an open 
top, so we can all see what card is first. The 
cards cannot fall out of the top, for there is a rim 
which holds them. They are kept up to the top 



156 ^^ Paris Club RoomsP 

by means of a spring in the box nnderneatli the 
cards, pressing them steadily, firmly np. 

" Eeady ! " 

The first card \dsible to all is, we will say, a 
ten-spot. No one knows what the next card is. 
We mil put ten dollars' worth of checks on the 
king, on the table. If the first card under the 
ten be a king, the bank wins. The cards are 
drawn out one at a time, and laid in two piles 
regularly. The first card (under the one which 
is visible) is the dealer's. All money bet on that, 
he takes. The second card belongs to us. All 
can see what cards are drawn. All the little 
piles of ivory checks standing on the first card, of 
the two drawn, are picked up by the dealer and 
set back where they belong in the box. All the 
little piles of ivory on the next card dra^vn call 
for the dealer to set beside them a pile of corre- 
sponding size and value. We bet on the king. 
The game goes on — the dealer draws, takes, and 
pays. Hallo! The king was in his pile — we 



^^ Paris Club lioomsP 157 

lose ten dollars ! We put ten more on the same 
card. Next time it»wins, as it comes out first or 
second. lie now puts ten dollars more on it. 
We place the twenty dollars on the Jack. He 
deals ; the first one in the pack under the king is 
a four-spot. He takes all there is bet on that 
card. The next one is a Jack. We had twenty 
dollars on it. He pays without a word. Per- 
haps half a dozen men were betting on the Jack. 
He pays each one all he bet thereon. We now 
have forty dollars. We shove the pile of chips 
or checks over to the queen. The rest of the 
players put their checks v/here they think best. 
He draws two more cards. The first is a six- 
spot, which loses ; the second is a queen. We 
have again won. He places checks on these to 
correspond with the pile we had there. Now we 
have eighty dollars — having lost one bet. We 
pile our chips in front of us, and put twenty dol- 
lars on the nine-spot. He draws. The nine-s^^ot 
comes first ; we lose. It is our opinion that the 



158 ^^Paris Club RoomsP 

nine-spot will not lose twice in succession, so we 
place twenty dollars more on it. Again he 
draws. The nine-spot wins. And so it goes. 
We bet on which card we please. Every other 
card wins for us — every other card wins for the 
bank. 

" IIow do they make it pay ? " 

That is the great question. When two cards 
are together, the half of what was bet on that 
card — an ace, for instance, if two aces are 
together in the pack — is taken by the dealer, for 
it is called a sjplit. This appears to be the only 
percentage the game has over those who play 
against it ; and in large games, such as are 
played here, the half which the house wins on 
sjplits often amounts to a thousand or more dol- 
lars a night. Again, men come in, lose a hun- 
dred or two dollars, and quit. The bank is gen- 
erally this much the gainer. Sometimes a man 
will lose a thousand, or twenty thousand dollars, 
a night, here. Sometimes a man will win as 



^^Paris Club Booms^'' 159 

much ; though few men have the nerve to play 
their " luck," as it is called, as high when win- 
ning as when losing. There is a percentage in 
favor of the bank — at least, a faro-bank generally 
wins, and they who play against it generally lose. 
"We started in with fifty dollars. It is now 
fifteen minutes of three. In fifteen minutes a 
carriage will be at the door. We have been 
lucky ; in the place of fifty dollars, we have now 
nearly four hundred. "We pile up our chips and 
pass them in to the dealer. lie hands out the 
greenbacks with a pleasant nod, which says " It 
is all right," and shove back from the table. In 
the forty-five minutes we sat there, three men 
were winners and seven were losers. The 
amount the three won is less than six hundred 
dollars, while the seven men have lost over four 
thousand ! The bank is ahead. Our wine, sup- 
per, &c., is paid for. We have four odd checks 
— just enough to divide between the waiter who 
attended us at the table, the one who brought us 



160 ''Paris Club Eoomsr 

cigars when we came in, the door-tender, and the 
boy in the coat-room. 

It is nearly thi'ee o'clock ; still the games go 
on. Here is a table where five men are playing 
poker for large stakes. Here sit two men and 
two of om' handsome ladies at euchre, for fifty 
dollars a corner. 

This is a gambling-house. It will be kept 
open till six in the morning. The crowd is not 
as when we entered. Some have gone home 
broke ! Some have won enough to do them, and 
left. The balance are here. Some are in the 
little rooms about here, having a social chat over 
a glass of wine or a cigar. The ladies, who were 
so smiling ^nq hours since, look war-worn and 
petulant. The waiters look somewhat sleepy. 
Still the game goes on. The dealer has been 
rested by his " partner," and another keen-e^^ed 
man draws the cards, takes, and pays. Men 
come here and lose in a night more than they 
made in a year. They use the funds of others. 



''Paris Club RoomsP 161 

If luckj, all is well ; if unlucky, there is a bank 
defalcation, a deficit in some Government offi- 
cial's account, a breaking-np of some merchant, 
and no one stops to inquire into particulars. 

" Ai'e you going, gentlemen % " 

" Yes ; it's time countrymen were in bed, you 
know." 

" Yes. Good thing ! Take something before 
you go out ? It's a raw night — must take care of 
health." And the polite proprietor insists on the 
acceptance of his hospitality. 

We start for the door. A pretty dame 
d^honneur, with a smile and look of interest, 
invites us to call when convenient, mshes us 
good night, and smiles us into the hall — well sat- 
isfied that the Paris Club Rooms of ]^ew York 
are models of dissipation, ease, luxury, and 
extravagance. In the recejDtion-room is a good 
fire. The ebony waiter carefully fixes on our 
overshoes, helps on our coat and furs, brushes our 
hat and overcoat, and bows his thanlvs as we give 



162 ^^ Paris Club Booms P 

him a check. At the iron door stands the keeper 
of this institution. We drop a check into his 
hand ; the doors open silently as before, and with 
a shiver we are outside, hastening into the car- 
riage there in waiting, and down the almost 
deserted streets are rumbling along to our hotel, 
to sleep away the balance of the night, or morn- 
ing, while our friends with us are satisiied with 
the adventures of the evening. 





CHAPTEE XIX. 



MT FIRST NIGHT AT SPARKING. 




ELL! She just took my eye — both 
eyes, for that matter ! Yoimg, 
gushing, bashful, laughing, happy 
black eyes, red cheeks, cherry lips, 
black hair, white teeth, voice like a warbler, 
laugh like the rising of a bride, step like a fawn, 
gait like a zephyi-, heart like the noonday sun ! 
Took my eye ! Ay ; she took my two eyes. 
Come to think of it, she took my heart along 
with my optics. She — God bless her animated 
photograph ! — ^was just rising sixteen. Sweet ? 
No name for it! I was older. I should be 



164 My First Night at Sjyarldng. 

older, and I was. I was rising nineteen — ^hard 
on nineteen and a half. 

TVe were neighbors. That is to say, our pater- 
nal relatives were neighbors, as the farms of our 
paternal relatives joined. My paternal relative 
was my uncle by birth, and I was^ his nephew ; 
but the farms joined just the same as though 
nothing had happened. Her name was Eliza. 
Her name was a sweet name to me. It flowed 
into my heart so sweetly like, I rather liked it 
We met by chance — the usual way. I went to 
her house of an errand. She was there, and we 
met. I went for a pail of vinegar, and she 
poiu'ed it out for me. When I got home, my 
aunt said the vinegar wa'n't good. I knew why 
— Eliza had looked into its depths, and gave it 
sweetness ! 

She had a brother. He was older than either 
of us. Ilanlv was his name, and he worked the 
farm. But I got to loving Eliza, if he did. We 
often met — in the orchard, when I went to steal 



My First Night at Sj[>arhing. ' 165 

fruit ; and the old man — that is, her father — sent 
her to drive me out I Take care, old man ! I am 
after t'other fruit what yon hain't dreamed of ! 

It took her a good while to drive me out. I 
was often chased by her — chased so far I had to 
go part way home with her ! Then, we met on 
the hills, when after berries. 

Lie still, fond heart ; 
You're dreamin' on her now ! 

I used to show her the big bushes. I used to 
shove a handful of the ripe fruit into her basket, 
at times. This was before she was rising sixteen 
— at least two years before. When I first got to 
loving her, and she acted as if she knowed it, I 
used to pull the brush out of her path, and con- 
sole her over the pricks and scratches she got 
from the thorny briars which beset our path. 

Well ! Time flew on, just as it always does. 
We increased in years, and I got to loving her 
more than a little. At last, I wanted to visit her 
by moonshine. It was in J;he fall of the season. 



166 • My First Night at Sjpm'Jcing. 

I had cut com all day with my paternal uncle. 
I was tired ; but love said to corn-cutting fatigue, 
" Get thee hence," and it henced to once. 

I enveloped myself in a boiled shirt with linen 
collar. It was a turn-over collar. I put onto 
me a dickey belonging to my uncle. I had but 
few store-clothes of my own, as I was not wealthy 
in worldly dross and such ! I put a couple 
squirts of mellow woodchuck-oil, scented with 
cinnamon-<essence, on my hair. It smelt good — ■ 
exceedingly good ! I turned over a griddle on 
the stove, spit on its "contraband-colored" side, 
and with one end of an old clothes-brush polished 
my understanding. "Wliat a polish ! It makes 
me sweat now, to think how I rubbed those faith- 
ful cowhide stogas ! They were strong, if not 
graceful ! 

My paternal uncle and my other paternal 
aunt-cestor was in the other room. All this work 
I did in the kitchen. It was after seven o'clock 
in the evening. Gayly I sallied out of the wood- 



My First Wight at Sjparking. 167 

shed door, and with beating hopes wended my 
way down to the rustic brown farm mansion 
wherein dwelt Eliza. 

It was a nice night — a very sweet, fragrant, 
moony night. A big time to make love to a girl 
rising sixteen ! My heart was like a volcano all 
the way there. I went by the house — dasn't go 
in ! Went down the road a few rods, and walked 
back by the gate. Saw her paternal relative sit- 
ting by the stove. Went past the gate again. 
Saw her other relative sitting by the table, darn- 
ing. Went by the gate again — softly, so as not 
to waken the dog, as he and I were not A^ery 
familiar. Saw Eliza at work by the stove, mak- 
ing cylindrical envelopes for sausages. 

Went by again ; fixed my hair, pulled down 
the lower end and pulled up the upper end of 
my shirt ; turned, came back, and very carefully 
lifted the latch of the gate. 

Not yet ! My heart went like a carpet-whip- 
per, and I walked off a little ways. Then I came 



168 My First Night at Bjparldng. 

back, got over the fence — kind of easy like — and 
waited. I^o one offered to Imrt me, and the cin- 
namon stuff on my hair revived me. I went to 
the door. On it I knocked more than twenty 
knocks all at once. 

" Deary me ! " said the old lady. 

" Some one at the door ! " said the old man. 

" And I at work in these ! " said Eliza. 

I waited a short, fleeting moment, and soon the 
old man came. 

" Wy — how-de-den, Brick ? " — (only that wa'n't 
the name, then) — said he. 

" Pretty well," said I. 

" Are yon ? " said he. 

■■•ST,- 
" I am," said I. -^ 

" Did you knock ? " said he'. 

" I did, indeed ! " said I. 

" I thought I heard you," said he. 

" 0000000 ! " said I. 

Then the old lady said, " Come in ! " I then 

went in, and sat down. The old man — the su-e 




/ " Then she unhitched a little more toward the centre part of the ston;, 
and I hitched a little thus myself." — See page ITU. 



My First Night at Sparking. 1G9 

of the Eliza — then continued his avocation, 
which was a newsj^aper. Then the old lady, as 
she darned the stockings, conversed with me. 
She asked me how was my uncle — and my aunt 
■7-and me, myself — and the corn — and the apples 
— and the beef -cow — and the cider. 

Then she took up to darn one of Eliza's stock- 
ings. She ran her hand into the extreme toe-end 
of it. How I wished it was my hand she was 
running into it ! But it wa'n't ! 

Then she darned it, and asked me how was the 
bees — and the new fanning-mill — and the red 
steers — and the new well. She asked me lots of 
things, and I felt more calmer in my bosom. 

Then Eliza came into my presence, and my 
heart went up again ! Strange how she affected 
me inwardly, so ! She took a seat and sat down. 

I said nothing — only, " Good evening, 'Liza ! " 
and I kinder laughed a little. 

" Good evening ! " said she, just as sweet I 

Then the old man — ^her paternal — laid down 
8 



170 My First Night at S^arJdng. 

Ills paper, leaned forward, and put one hand on 
each knee. Then he looked at me and Eliza. 
Then he pulled off his boots, maintaining a severe 
silence meanwhile. Then he took off his stock- 
ings. Then he yawned, and said : 

" Well, mother, guess I'll go to bed ! " lie 
then arose, went out on the door-step to see what 
kind of weather the morrow would bring forth, 
came in, and went to his couch ! 

Soon the maternal relative went to her reti- 
racy, and we — that is, Eliza and I — w^ere left 
alone. 

This was the moment ! On one side of the 
stove sat she ; on the other side sat I. We thus 
sat some time. Then she hitched a little, and I 
unhitched a little. Then she unhitched a little, 
more toward the centre part of the stove, and I 
hitched a little thus myself. Then she snugged 
toward me a little more ! Then I rubbed my 
back against the chair, and I snugged toward 



My First Night at SjparJcing. 171 

her 1 Pretty soon " snugging " was played out, 
as we had reached. 

* * * ^ * * * 

We had not been so sweetly contagious to each 
other a bit more than two minutes by the old 
clock in the corner, when, 

" ^Liza ! " came in sharp tones from the bed- 
room in which was the parents. 

"Yes, mother!" said the fau' and fragile 
daughter. 

A moment or two with our hands close to- 
gether. 

^'Li-za! Remember that candles is can- 
dles ! " 

" Yes, mother ! " said the daughter, and she 
blew out the li^ht. 

" TFAy, ''Liza ! how can ' Brick ' see to get 
out ? " came in wondering tones from the bed- 
room. 

It was a hard job ! We stumbled over the 
paternal's boots and over a chair, kissed the dear 



172 My First Night at S^arJcing, 

girl on the side of the head by mistake, and went 
liome mad. On the way home, something said 
sparlving wa'n't what it was cracked np to be ; 
and a lacerated, crushed, and desponding heart 
indorsed the sentiment. 

Two weeks after tliat I received a little piece 
of a shingle, on which was written in a neat 
hand, with red challv : 

" Eliza would be glad to have yon call, Sunday 
night." 

As my paternal nncle had no candles to spare, 
that I coidd take along, I didn't go ; and she — 
poor girl ! — was left. 

Thus, like a wicked candle, my unwicked love 
was put out. . 





CHAPTER XX. 




THE GIRLS. 

ALK not to us of the city belle, 

With her kangaroo stoop and Grecian swell, 
But of — 



THE GIRLS IN THE COUNTRY. 

With lips that vie with the cherry, 

Roguishness camped in their eyes — 
With sleeves rolled up in the pantry, 

Rolling away at the pies 1 
With a laugh like the sun in the morning, 

Melting the hearts of their beaux 1 
Oh ! the girls of the country forever — 

The girls with cheeks like the rose ! 
Who can laugh — who can romp and be merry, 

Whom you never can take by surprise I 
Whom to meet it is dangerous, very : 

For the heart stricken once by them dies, 
Unless they will promise to marry ! 

And there's where Hie great trouble lies ! 




CIIAPTEE XXI. 



STRIJCK BY THE DIVINE AFFLATUS. 




WAS born about the first thing I 
can remember. It was so long ago 
it seems but yesterday, but it wa'n't. 
For several years I had no sweet- 
heart, though my manly head was pillowed ; but 
how, I will not tell. One day father brung home 
a bundle of stuff, with a smile hopping over his 
face like a one-legged tom-tit over an onion-bed. 
He said, " Make the boy some trousers, and see 
how he looks." 

I heard it, and swelled up. My mother was a 
woman. If it hadn't been for her, I don't antici- 
pate much. Mothers have much to do with good 



StrucJc hy the Divine Afflatus, 175 

little boys. And the gentlemanly tailor who cut 
my legs to fit the trousers and sewed up the 
seams thereof, was a woman. This is why I took 
to them naturally. So affectionate was I for 
woman, that, if my father had hired a man, no 
matter how nice, for a wet-nurse, I do believe I'd 
have jumped the bounty, fled fl'om the ramparts, 
forsook the fortifications, and dwelt with Solitude 
where are thy charms? One day a little boy 
came to our house visiting. That little boy wore 
a frock, and looked sort of funny to me. I 
showed him the grindstone, kittens, bee-hive, 
pigs, and all the little doings. Then I took him 
to the house. We were about eight years old 
apiece. The little boy was in bad humor, and 
cried. His mother, being sort of chivabous, 
placed him on her two knees, and applied the flat 
of her hand — not to his head nor heels, nor to my 
head, but somewhere, and I believe I've forgot- 
ten. I witnessed the performance. This was 
my first knowledge of capital punishment. 



176 Struck hy the Divine Afflattcs, 

Mother told me, when I asked her about it the 
next daj, that the little boy was a girl, and I 
wondered if all girls were cross. 

Then I forsook their company, and swore a life 
of celibacy. For years I was, so far as love was 
concerned, a hermit. My fancy fell on bread 
and butter with sugar onto it ; mush and milk, 
with an occasional apple-dumpling. I roamed 
with the pigs, the cows, the horses, and the hens. 
I made voyages for eggs, and raised trouble with 
the cats who came with friendly intent to mow 
away the new-mown hay of their feline love. I 
was happy, except when compelled to ride a tliin 
horse all day to plough corn, and no saddle. My 
soul soared above such doings, and my eager 
spirits chafed to be free, like the turkey pullet 
that bounds over the plain like a base-ball after ^, 
chased grasshoppers. 

And so sped me on to the terrors of a first 
mustache. Oh, mustache ! I sing a paean to thy 
glory now. The responsibilities thrust by experi- 



StrucJc hy the Divine Afflatus. 177 

menting ^Nature on my upper lip were of a 
harassing nature. But I lived to see that mus- 
tache sprout and come down, so to speak. Amid 
this glory, I blush to own the strength of my 
weakness. 

Old Keyser lived two miles below our house. 
He was a shoemaker, and kept a peach-orchard. 
One day I wanted a waxed end to make a cracker 
for a whip. I went to his shoe-shop, and he said 
" Yea." Then I meandered into his orchard, and 
Congressionally appropriated a few of his best. 
He saw me, and advanced upon my unprotected 
rear with a raw-hide. I discovered his approach 
after my doom was sealed. I went to old Key- 
ser's after a waxed end. Success came and dwelt 
with me. I got it — he gave it to me ! 

It is safe to say I was mad — moderately so, at 
least. I swore revenge. One night I went down 
to old Keyser's to rob his orchard. I wanted 
more of his fruit. I saw his daughter, Kusku- 
relia, and she s}Tnpathized with me. She gave 



178 Struch hy tlie Divine Ajffiatus. 

me peaches, and told me to come often. She 
went a little way home with me. She was 
pretty. She was plump as a dumpling, and her 
lips seemed like two happy days telling pretty 
stories to each other. 

When we parted, she handed me the last 
peach. It was luscious. We stood under a 
grape-vine by the road. As I took the peach, 
her forefinger and thumb touched mine. How 
my hand felt ! It seemed as if nine hundred 
humming-birds had met in the palm of my hand 
to hold a sorosis meeting. I felt queer all over ! 
Right back of my left ear I thought a full band 
was playing " Come where my Love lies dream- 
ing." 

May Mars forgive me, but I couldn't help it ! 
I scorn to utter a lie. I am no politician, nor 
President. I can't lie, and, what is more, I 
won't. I dropped that peach, put one arm 
around her neck, one around her elbow, swooned 



Struck hy the Divine Afflatus. 179 

down upon her lips like a twelve-pound babj in 
a new pillow just shook up. 

Peaches never have Jbeen peaches since. Old 
Keyser's fruit was all a man could desire, and 
Kuskurelia was the bloomingest of all he pos- 
sessed. 

Memory doth not bring new-mown hay so 
sweet as that my first. And the way she put up 
her little lips ! The moon saw it, and ran under 
a cloud. I have venerated moon ever since. I 
stood guard about those lips till the moon came 
out. Then we walked a little way up the road. 
Our pace was slower than the return of the Bull 
Kun excursionists to Washington. Yes, indeed ! 
Her hand was in mine. It seemed as if Cupid 
was ramming my left arm full of ten-thousand- 
pound cartridges, and forcing them into my heart 
a mile a Second. My hair felt large and airy, 
like a bamboo fish-pole. Pretty soon we stopped 
by the corner of a fence. I slid my left arm 
around Kuskurelia's waist, dropped my right 



ISO Struck hy the Divine Afflattcs, 

down on her left wrist and into lier trembling 
palm ; lier head floated sidewise to mj left shoul- 
der-shift ; my eyes went shut like an eclipse ; her 
lips opened like an over-ripe nutmeg-melon ; her 
breath canle sweeter than the Songs of Solomon ; 
there was a collision of two fond souls ; Cupid 
moved in upon my heart as Forrest did at Fort 
Pillow, and I felt as if my backbone had been 
rented for an artillery-park, or Boston Peace 
Jubilee Coliseum. 

Git eout ! Move on ! Don't stand on the 
corners ! If you never went in love, do so quick. 
The little stare winked, as if they knew all about 
it. Nature sent about ninety-seven little breezes 
to fan our cheeks and flap the little wings of 
Cupid. Gently I sat Kuskurelia down on a rock, 
and twined myself confidingly close to her. We 
spoke of peaches, but there was no lustre in their 
stems. And the cool winds sighed about our 
flowing curls, till it seemed that the red head of 
Kuskurelia was a ten-mile torchlight procession 



Struck hy the Divine Afflatus. 181 

leading a gallopade up and down the chambers 
of my heart. I was bewildered — at a loss for 
words. So I sqnoze her hand, and she squiz 
mine. Then I said, as on the dewy earth I lay 
with my head in her lap, my heels on a stmnp, 
and one of her lips just touching my forehead : 

" Oh, Kuske, Kuske me ever ! " And her eyes 
closed, and I felt as full of joy as a base drum 
full of Hail Columbia. And I said : 

" Oh, Kuske, fruit of Keyser the venerable, 
peach of all peaches ! you are the peach, and I 
am down ! And here let us sweetly linger, wliile 
the moon goes cat-hopping from cloud to cloud, 
and all about us the zephyrs play like fingers in 
love's dalliance ! " And she said : 

" Brickey, dear, I don't mind the moon no 
more than the old man ; but I've got to wash 
to-morrow. Let's go home." 

So we arose, and returned with Kuskurelia to 
the domicile de Keyser. And there we lingered 
over lingerings in the lingerments of love, and 



182 Struch hy the Divine Afflatus. 

again I tasted of that sweet bliss which springs 
from the divine afflatus, till she was ready to 
walk back with iis. And so we walked all night. 
And from that day to this the taste of a peach 
has been full of strange melancholy, and the 
tonch of a pretty girl's hand has consternated my 
existence ; and the memory of that night with 
Kuskurelia lingers on the fond organ of my 
bemg like a wad of shoemaker's wax in your top- 
knot. But for the peaches, the Keyser, and his 
Kuskurelia, I had not been as I cannot hope to 
be again. 





CHAPTEE XXII. 



AS A BASE BALLIST. 




lUREKA ! 

Look at that brace of hands, once 
so soft and pretty, now snffused with 
the Eg}^tian bUishes ! Then look 
into those optics, and tell ns tales of sympathy 1 
And look at that Monnt Tom on om- right cheek- 
bone ! Base ball ! That is the row. 

It came about thus : Secondary deployment is 
too shirksome for the system. The doctor said 
we needed exercise. Doctor knows. He told us 
to join base ball club. "VYe joined. Bought a 
book of instructions, and for five days studied it 
wisely, if not too well. Then we bought a sugar- 



184 As a Base Ballist. 

scoop cap, a red belt, a green shirt, yellow trou- 
sers, j)imkin-colored shoes, a paper collar and 
purple neck-tie, and, with a lot of other delegates, 
moved gently to the grounds. 

There were two nines. These nines were 
antagonists. The ball is a pretty little drop of 
softness the size of a goose-egg, and five degrees 
harder than a brick. The two nines play against 
each other. It is a quiet game, much like chess, 
only a little more chase than chess. 

There was an umpire. His position is a hard 
one. He sits on a box and yells " Fowl ! " His 
duty is severe. 

I took the bat. It is a murderous plaything, 
descended from Pocahontas to the head of John 
Smith. The man in front of me was a pitcher 
He was a nice pitcher, but he sent the balls hot. 
The man behind me was a catcher. He caught 
it, too ! 

The umpire said, " Play ! " It is the most rad- 
ical play I know of, this base ball. Sawing cord- 



As a Base Ballist. 185l. 

wood is moonliglit rambles beside base-ball. So 
the pitcher sent a ball toward me. It looked 
pretty coming, so I let it come. Then he sent 
another. I hit it with the club, and hove it 
gently upward. Then I started to walk to the 
fii'st base. The ball lit in the j^itcher, or his 
hands, and somebody said he caught a fly. Alas, 
poor fly ! I walked leisurely toward the base. 
Another man took the bat. I turned to see how 
he was making it, and a mule kicked me on the 
cheek. The man said it was the ball. It felt 
like mule, and I reposed on the grass. The ball 
went on ! 

Pretty soon there were two more flies, and 
three of us flew out. Then the other nine came 
in, and we nine went out. This was better. 
Just as I was standing on my dignity in the left 
field, a hot ball, as they called it, came sky- 
rocketing toward me. My captain yelled, ^' Take 
it I" 

I hastened gently forward to w^here the ball 



186 As a Base Ballist. 

was aiming to descend. I have a good eye to 
measure distances, and saw at a glance where the 
little aerolite was to light. I put up my hands. 
How sweetly the ball descended ! Everybody 
looked. I felt something warm in my eye. 
"Muffin!" yelled ninety fellers. "Muffin, be 

d ! It's a cannon-ball ! " For three days 

I've had two pounds of raw beef on that eye, and 
yet it paineth ! 

Then I wanted to go home, but my gentle cap- 
tain said "Nay." So I nayed, and stayed. 
Pretty soon it was my strike. " Brick to bat ! " 
yelled the umpire. I went, but not all serene, as 
was my wont. The pitcher sent in one hip-high. 
I missed it. lie sent in another neck-high. It 
struck me in the gullet. " Fowl ! " yelled the 
umpire. He sent in the ball again. This time I 
took it square, and sent it down the right field, 
through a parlor window, a kerosene lamp, and 
rip up against the head of an infant who was 
quietly taking its nap in its mother's arms. 



As a Base Ballist. 187 

Then I sliing the bat, and meandered forth to the 
first base. I heard high words, and looked. 
When I slung the bat, I had with it broken the 
jaw of the umpire, and was fined ten cents. 

The game went on. I liked it. It is so much 
fun to run from base to base just in time to be 
put out, or to chase a ball three-fourths of a mile 
down-hill, while all the spectators yell " Muffin ! " 
" Go it ! " — " Home run ! " — " Go round a^cain ! " 
— or, " Go round a dozen times ! " Base-ball is a 
sweet little game. When it came my turn to bat 
again, I noticed everybody moved back about ten 
rods ! The new' umpire retreated twelve rods. 
He was timid ! The pitcher sent 'em in hot. 
Hot balls in time of war are good ; but I don't 
like 'em too hot for fun. After a while I got a 
fair clip at it, and you bet it went ! cutting the 
daisies down the right field. A fat man and his 
dog sat in the shade of an oak, enjoying tlie 
game. The ball broke one leg of the dog, and 



188 As a Base Ballist. 

landed like a runaway engine in the corporosity 
of the fat man. lie was taken home to die. 

Then I went on a donble-qnick to the field, 
and tried to stop a hot ball. It came towards me 
from the bat at the rate of nine miles a minute. 
I put up my hands. The ball went sweetly sing- 
ing on its way, with all the skin from my palms 
with it. 

More raw beef ! 

That was an eventful chap who first invented 
base ball. 

It's such fun I I've played five games, and 
this is the glowing result : 

Twenty-seven dollars paid out for damages. 

One bunged eye, badly bunged. 

One broken little finger. 

One bump on the head. 

Nineteen lame backs. 

A sore jaw. 

One thumb dislocated. 

Three sprauied ankles. 



As a Base Ballist, ' 189 

Five swelled legs. 

One dislocated shoulder, from trying to throw 
a ball a thousand yards. 

Two hands raw from trying to stop hot balls. 

A welt the size of a hornet's-nest on my left 
hip, well back. 

A nose sweetly jammed ; and ^^q- uniforms 
spoiled from rolling in the dirt at the bases. 

I have played two weeks, and don't think I 
like the game. There is not a square inch on, in, 
or under me, but aches. I sleep nights dreaming 
of hot balls, "flys," ^^fouls^'' and descending 
" sky-rockets." 

But I am proud of my proficiency in the game. 
It's fine exercise — a little easier than being run 
through a threshing machine, and not much, 
either. It's a nice game for a poet or orator; 
'twill make one sore beyond all accounts. 

I've looked over the scorer's book, and find 
that in two weeks I've broken seven bats, made 
one tally, broken one umpire's jaw, broken ten 



190 • As a Base Ballist. 

windows in adjoining honses, killed a baby, broke 
the leg of a dog and mortally injured the bread- 
basket of a spectator, knocked five other players 
out of time by slinging my bat, and knocked the 
waterfall fi'om a school-marm who was standing 
twenty rods fi'om the field, a quiet looker-on. 

I've used up fifteen bottles of arnica liniment, 
^NQ bottles of lotions, half a raw beef, and am so 
full of pain that it seems as if my bones were but 
broken bats, and my legs the limbs of a dead 
horse-chestnut, instead of the once elastic trotters 
of Thme, 

" B." P. 





CHAPTER XXIIL 



THE TOILEE BY THE SEA. 



Gay as a waterfall — 

Indeed were she ! 
Her pap was a deacon 

In Marble-h-e-a-D I 

jHEEE the hioch-rollino; billows kissed 
the feet of the shore and wet the 
stones on the beach, on the periph- 
ery of that Christianized land 
known as New England, lived a toiler by the 
sea. He was a Puritan deles-ate of hio;h re- 
nown, and made his living by deaconizing in a 
Marblehead church, building fires on a high rock, 
and gathering up the little things washed ashore 




192 The Toiler ly the Sea, 

fi'om the vessels wi*ecked by the poor captains 
who made for his false light, thinking it to be a 
reo'ular lio-ht-hoiise. 

lie was a kind-hearted thief as ever robbed a 
corpse, and was so interested in temperance, that 
he ponred barrels of rum down his New England 
gnllet to keep ^dsitors fi'om igniting themselves 
thereby ! lie revelled in a red house, carried the 
key to the church, rejoiced in the Scripture name 
of Ananias, and was weaned on paregoric ; else 
he had not put his family to sleep nights, so long 
and loud were his prayers. His t'other name was 
Jimplecute, and he was in all respects Ananias 
Jimplecute. 

Once, when I was a young lad, striving with a 
pair of straps on the lower end of my pants, man- 
fidly struggling with an incipient mustache, and 
rejoicing in the elegant manner in which I could 
write my name on a school-house door with a 
piece of charcoal, I meandered by the home- 
temple of A. J., and looked in. 



The Toiler hy the Sea. 193 

The eminent New England Christian was a 
rooster that crowed loud. It was a calm, still 
night. There was no storm raging to drive shij)s 
out of their track. The moon was doino^ her 
best ; and A. J. was, as I was gliding past his 
door, on the devotion much, lie was always 
thus when there were no wrecks on the coast. 
He had a daughter ! She was a female — bound 
in health, and of much muscle, so-called. She 
knelt in the open door on a calm summer eve, 
her bare feet pointing to a pan of dough on the 
hearth, in which were reposing a litter of young 
kittens — to make them docile, I presume ! — her 
face looking toward the silent roar of the distant 
waves, while with a fish-spear she was digesting 
the devotion of her paternal, and gently scratch- 
ing the back of a swine, which lay like a ship in 
the trough of a mud-hole near the door. The 
touching beauty of the scene filled nae with novel 
awe. I blew my nose, and gently lingered. 

The daughter's name was Tibelius. And this 
9 



194 The Toiler hy the Sea. 

was the prayer she was listening to ! I winked 
majestically at Tibelius, and drew nigh. Her 
paternal had been engaged a full hour when I 
arrove. He had visited the heathen of the dis- 
tant lands, and was gently on his way home. 
And thus prayed he : 

" And now, Lord of love and peace, wilt Thou 
not confuse Thine enemies, and bow the necks of 
all who live in wealth and pride, and are far 
removed from Marblehead and Thee ! Let the 
heathen rage, and protect me and mine. Look 
down upon the African and Africaness, that they 
may be happy, as we are happy ! Give fur shirts 
to the Tim-buc-tos and fans to the Rus-si-ans, for 
they know not what they do. And teach all 
men to love Thee as I do. And give us prosper- 
ity, peace, and good-will, and confuse all other 
churches but the one in Marblehead ; and pros- 
per that, for I wish to sell it a building-lot. And 
hold the ships on the sea in the hollow of Thy 
hand, and from distant lands send them swiftl}/ 



The Toiler ly the Sea. 195 

to New England. And then, let sickness spare 
those whose wages are paid in advance ; and in 
storms direct the eyes of the captains, not toward 
the steady light in the harbor, but to the higher 
light I have erected on Hound Rock summit, that 
the ships that contain valuable goods may be 
dashed to pieces on the beach beneath, as a warn- 
ing to those who would seek to become rich, and 
that I may be busy — for the devil loves an idle 
man. And spare Thou the poor sailors every- 
where ; but if they are wrecked, let them die 
quickly before they reach the shore, so I shall 
not be obliged to bury them, except they have 
valuables in their pockets ! Amen ! Old 
woman, wind the clock ! " 

How I loved that man — that true ]N"ew Ens:- 
land Christian ! He was such a good man ! He 
had such a heart for those who suffered ! I ven- 
erated his tallowed hair. And 1 loved the fair 
two-hundred cherub who winked at me inno- 
cently with the spear in one hand. Ananias was 



196 The Toiler ly the Sea. 

a tender-hearted man. lie nsed to send his 
daughter out to kindle a fire on the rock when 
the storm was howling. And the next day, when 
the beach would be strewn with spoons, watches, 
pianos, books, furniture, bales of cotton. Bibles, 
mules, and wounded men who had been driven 
ashore on an inliospitable coast by following the 
light there Idndled to blind them, with what ten- 
derness would he move aromid among them I 
How sweetly he would gather up their valuables 
and tote them to a place of safety ! And he 
would so kindly drop a box, or an anvil, or a 
chunlv of iron, on the heads of the wounded ones, 
to put them out of misery ! He was very kind ! 
He carried strychnine to give those in agony, and 
removed their money and jewelry in order to 
prepare their souls for heaven ! And to each 
one he thus relieved he would give a tract, or 
have Tibelius sit by their side and read the ser- 
mon of Christ on the Mount. It looked so sweet 
to see that good saint of Marblehead bearing the 



The Toiler ly the Sea, 197 

burdens of the day, growing crooked nnder the 
loads of plunder he carried away to remove all 
thoughts of wealth from the hearts of the poor 
ones he was caring for so kindly ! And it looked 
like the tint of August, to see that dear girl of 
Ananias, clad in the dresses, laces, jewelry, and 
pretty things once worn by the wives and sisters 
of the poor wrecked ones, to remind them, in 
their dying hours, of 

Home, sweet home I 
There is no place like home ! 

as she would sit there and read to them from her 
little tracts, and try so hard to turn their thoughts 
heavenward I And when they wanted to give 
thanks to A. J. and his daughter, how tenderly 
would A. J. and those under him hold their 
hands over the mouths of those who would speak 
— lest talking weary them, you know ! And how 
touching it was to see the wrecked ones doing as 
they were bid ! — to see them roll over and fill 
their mouths with wool, and smile on the angel 



198 The Toiler hy the Sea. 

of peace born from the loins of that New Eng- 
land Christian, without a murmur ! And to see 
the young men of the prairie, back of Marble- 
head, lugging plunder continually to enrich the 
ISTew England Puritan ; working, toiling unceas- 
ingly, uncomplainingly, helping bury the wrecked 
ones as fast as A. J. should drop items of weight 
on their heads to gently cease their misery. 





CHAPTEE XXIV. 



KISSING IN DBIEAMS. 




N my bed in slumber sweet 
I revelled in Dreams of love. 
'Twas the noon of nigbt — the silent street 
Was still as tbe starry hosts above. 
I sweetly dreamed that my strong arm 

Was round her neck so white and dear — 
That she sought me out, and safe from harm, 
With kisses told she knew no fear. 



I gently drew her to my breast 

And kissed and kissed her lips so free. 
And she kissed back, and there at rest 

In dreams how happy then were we ! 
At last this kissing woke me up, 

And there, his face close to my head, 
Lay Victor, my young pointer pup. 

Who in dead of night had found my bed ! 




CIIAPTEE XXY. 




LAKE ROSS SEWING-CIRCLE. 

** Alas 1 and did my Sayiour bleed 
For such a worm as I ? " 

[UrDGET, put the breakfast-dishes 
to soak, and cut a lunch for my 
dear husband ! Sweep the cobwebs 
out of the best room, and oj)en the 
window there,, so it won't smell so close. Tlien 
mop the floors, empty the old left dishes in the 
pantry, scour the knives on that new bath-brick, 
run over to Mrs. Buzzy's and borrow her tea- 
spoons and a double drawin' of tea, take the 
young ones over to Aunt Hanner's, so they won't 
squall, borrow a clean table-cloth of MrSv Haran, 



Lake Ross Sewing-circle, 201 

and get ready for the Sewing Society this after- 
noon ; while I go and learn a few verses of the 
Bible, and a little snatch of three or four hymns 
to repeat and sing ; for you know I am an officer 
of the Sewing Society, and, as it meets here to- 
day, I must appear rather smart. And the min- 
ister is coming to tea ; so you must borrow an 
extra spoon of somebody." 

" Tes'm ! " 

Mrs. Talky was a nice, pious sister of one of 
the Lake Ross churches. She had long been a 
lively ant in the Christian sugar-bowl ; and, as 
she had the longest tongue of any sister of the 
flock, she could out-talk the others, and thus 
ranked high. That afternoon the Sewing Soci- 
ety met at her house to make pin-cushions for the 
nigger babies down South, and to ku-klux the 
reputations of those who did not belong to the 
Society. 

Bridget went hence to arrange for the festive 
ceremonies, Mrs. Talky learned her lessons, and 



202 Lake Ross Sewing-circle. 

two o'clock found the dirt swept well behind the 
doors and under the bed — for Mrs. Talky was a 
marvel of neatness — and all in readiness, except 
the tea. 

At three o'clock the female panorama of 
Samaritanism had gathered in Mrs. Talk;^'s par- 
lor, each with her work. It promised to be a big 
day for the down-trodden wards of the nation. 

Mrs. Talky was high wren of the cage. Mrs. 
Waggle, a demnre little lady of one baby and 
prospects, was Secretary, and a vigilant worker 
on a lamp-mat for a nigger church. Mrs. 
Squawk, a long-nosed sister, who knew much 
and wanted to know more, was building a slipper- 
pattern for Fred. Douglass. 

Mrs. IToall, a blooming widow of fifty, who 
knew more than the law allowed of sinful natures 
in general, was President, and did nothing. 

There were twenty-one ladies present, and 
much good was accomplished. 

At half -past three the labor of the day was 



Lcbke Boss Sewing-circle. 203 

finished, when the real object of the meeting 
broke out. 

Mrs. Noall was folding np the work, when an 
allusion was made to Mr. Marm, one of her 
neighbors. 

"Oh, that horrid Marm!" said Mrs. I^oall. 
" I know him. I knew him years ago. I have 
long been intimately acquainted with him, and 
he is the worst man but ten in Lake Koss." 

Here the conversation became general, and all 
the sisters took a shot at the bird on the wing. 
" That is so ! I know all about his doings." 
" And that poor wife of his'n ! She actually 
mends his pants! And they do say they use 
butter only once a day ! " 

" Good enough for her ! She knew what he 
was when she married him." 

" I saw him talking to Miss Jones, the other 
day, and he never seemed to care a bit when I 
caught him at it ! " 

" Just like all the men ! " 



204 Lake Ross Sewlng-cirde^ 

*^ Except mine ! ^' 

" Except mine ! " 

" And mine ! " 

" AVell, I don't care for Marm ; but do yon 

know how Brown acts, Mrs. Tallvj, when he 
goes in company ? " 

" I shonki say so, love ! Bnt they do say he 
drinks terribly! He drinks so bad, and is so 
jealons, that his wife — poor woman ! — has to let 
the Doctor in the back way, nights, to see him, 
when he is asleep. She thinks so much of 
him ! " 

"Of who?" 

" Her husband, of course ! " 

" Pshaw I I know better. No woman can love 
a man who won't buy her more than four new 
bomiets a year ! That is impossible ! " 

" Did you see Miss Smith's bonnet, to-day ? 
Such a gawk ! And old Smith is rich, but awful 
stingy! Won't his children be glad when he 
dies 1 " 



Lahe Ross Sewing-circle. 205 

" Well, his money ain't his'n. It don't belong 
to him ; it's mortgaged." 

" Oh ! did you know that Mrs. Black had a 
baby ? " 

"No I" 

" Do tell ! " 

" Yes ; it was l)orn to-day, and weighs ten 
ponnds. It is a boy. I went over to borrow a 
chum, and asked. And I wanted to see if Mrs. 
Black had a new carpet. Mrs. Wliite said she 
had." 

" Mrs. White ! PsJiaw ! The proud thing I 
Because she keeps a horse and two hired girls, 
she needn't stick up her noso a])ove other people ! 
I know when she hadn't a sh — illi ng to her back ! 
And she never would have been anybody, if she 
hadn't man-ied young White, who had money. 
They say she had to marry him! You know, 
their first child wa'n't born till the second winter 
— and that proves all I've said." 



206 Lake Ross Sewing-circle, 

"Ok, that's nothing to Miss Green! You 
know what she did ? " 

" Yes ; and the more shame for her, to get 
their minister in such a scrape I Ministers is 
human, as we all are ; and I never blame 'em 
when they come around me." 

" Well, what do you think of Kev. Mr. Stone ? 
He goes to see Deacon "Wood's wife every day. 
She wants too much praying to suit me ! They 
say he goes to give music-lessons on the melo- 
deon ; but I don't believe a word of it." 

" I don't see what there is so attractive about 
her ! I thought he had better taste ! " 

" She acts like Mrs. Jones, who always sticks 
her nose up when she comes in church. We 
wouldn't have her there, but her husband has got 
money, and pays." 

" Have you heard about Miss Twig % " 

"La, no! What is it?" 

" Ah, it is such a shame, I blush to tell it ! 
You know, she was to be married to young 



Lake Boss Sewing-circle, 207 

Beans. Well, she was sick, last week. Mrs. 
Wiggle's hired girl told my hired girl that Mrs. 
!N"aggle's hired gu-l told her that she heard the 
doctor say that she had been eating too much 
succotash ? That's Beans ! The Doctor needn't 
try to lie out of it ! " 

" Mebbe he will marry that Miss Dix he used 
to go with ! " 

" I don't believe it ! She has no taste in dress. 
And she is so nasty about the house ! The last 
time I was there she actually blacked the cook- 
stove with a rag ! " 

" Her father ought to be ashamed of himself ! " 

" Did you hear about Deacon Jenks ? '■ 
■ "N'o. What is it?" 

" Why, I thought everybody knew it ! You 
know, he hired Matilda Miggles to wash for him 
a year. When his wife died, he said he wanted 
Matilda to take care of the children. One night, 
as I was passing the house, I peeked in the 
kitchen-window, and saw Matilda go into the 



208 Lake Boss Sewing-circle, 

parlor where the Deacon was sitting, and shut 
the door. I know a thing or two! Now, the 
Deacon has gone to a water-cure with his chil- 
dren, and taken Matilda along ! I know what is 
what ! " 

" Can it be possible ! " 

"Dotell!" 

"Well, I never!" 

" I can't believe it ! " 

" Kor I. But jou know that the Deacon had 
that reputation before he joined the church." 

"I wonder why Mrs. Judd don't join the 
church ? " 

" Oh, her husband has failed, and can't buy a 
pew." 

" Good enough for them ! I sha'n't visit them 
. any more I " 

" Well, I wonder if Bill Birch and Carrie Col- 
ton ever intend to get married ? " 

" I don't believe they do. Bill is tough. He 
laughs at our minister, and says we are a lot of 




'•Hi-re comes the minister I 0)i, lie is such a dear, good man I and he 
has his pockets full of nowsijapers."— /.%c page 209. 



Lake Ross Sewing -circle. 209 

old hens ! and I have told Carrie not to marry 
him." 

" Well, what does he go to see Mrs. "Wriggle 
for? He professes to be such a friend of the 
family, and always spends his evenings there ! 
That means something ! " 

" Of course it does ! " 

" Well, I never heard of it. ! " 

" It's so, and I don't care who knows it ! " . 

" There goes Mrs. Ochre I What horrid tas- 
sels I — ^her old dress made over into a walking one." 

" How I hate such snobbery I " 

" And II" 

" Well, that is all you can expect of her — of 
any one who belongs to that church I " 

" That's so I " 

" Well, that church ain't so nice as ours will 
be!" 

" Here comes the minister I Oh, he is such a 
dear, good man I — and he has his pockets full of 
newspapers." 



210 



Lahe Ross Sewing-circle, 



We saw the party seated at supper, admiring 
the conquered spoons, borrowed from a retm-ned 
chaplam, and could -not help thinking that the 
Lake Koss Sewing Society was a big thing ! 





CHAPTER XXYL 



PEETTY WAITEE-GIBL SALOONS. 




T six o'clock we dine at a hotel or 
boarding-house, and consider the 
work of the day, especially for 
business men and strangers, well- 
nigh done. As New York is a great city in 
every sense of the word, it is wgrth while to see 
and know of its peculiar institutions. 

The waiter hands our overcoat and overshoes. 
Turn the fur collar well about the ears, for the 
night is very cold. Out from the warm hotel 
into the bitter air. The walks are covered with 
pedestrians huiTying by. 



212 Pretty Waiter-girl Saloons, 

*'Some in rags, 
Some in jags, 
And some ia velvet gowns." — 

borrowing a snatch from an old song. The 
drivers on the omnibuses sit wrapped like doll- 
babies going visiting, and, with head drawn in 
like a turtle, guide their tired horses and loads 
of freezing passengers through the equine sea 
and mass of carriages. Here and there is a cart ; 
here and there a horse down on the smooth, 
cold, hard, stone-covered street, lying quiet and 
stunned, or plunging wildly to regain a treacher- 
ous foothold. 

Never mind the omnibuses, nor stop to look or 
sympathize with fallen horses ; for fallen human- 
ity is more of a study. Up Broadway, past the 
stores closed for the night — ^by the tempting 
show-windows of retail dealers in useful and 
fancy articles — past the marble-fronted hotels — 
by the variegated gas-light signs and large lamps 



Pretty Waiter-girl Saloons. 213 

indicating places of amusement — and still on up 
the wonderful street. 

Down there is a large oyster-cellar, where a 
thousand men per day tempt and satisfy their 
palates with fat bivalves. Down there is a mam- 
moth restaurant or dining-saloon, where citizens 
and strangers supply the inner man with food 
and beverage, and where " single gentlemen 
with their wives," in cozy little rooms looked in 
upon but by God and a close-mouthed waiter, 
drink their wine, eat game suppers, and prepare 
the way for misery. Hell has many " improve- 
ment companies " in New York, and secures vol- 
unteers without recourse to a draft other than 
that of the son of Jupiter and Semele. 

Blaze and glitter, gas-light and tinsel ! Now 
we come to underground saloons, where the trans- 
parencies on the walk inform us that Miss Frank, 
or Miss Nellie, or Miss Kate, has a Concert- 
Saloon. The sign says music and dancing are 



214 Pretty Waiter-girl Saloons. 

free. It says the prettiest waiter-girls in the city 
are there. 

" Let lis go down." 

No ; not now. The finest are not on Broad- 
way, and we will reserve an inspection of these 
till we have looked in iipon those of a better 
class — if better there be to these dormer-windows 
of damnation. 

To the left. Do not hurry, for there is plenty 
of time. Eight o'clock is but the preface of the 
evening. Never mind who these are we are 
meeting and passing continually. Only waiting 
— ^nothing more ! Across Mercer street, once so 
famous, or infamous, and still more than a ghost 
of its ugliness. Here is Greene street. To the 
left. Here comes a horse-car — red light ; fare 
six cents. We go to the right. Never mind, 
di'iver ; we'll jump on. Sit close, for the car is 
crowded ; but look out for jams, for such things 
are severe on watches and pocket-books. 

Some way out of the business-pai-t of town we 



Prett]^ Waiter-girl Saloons. 215 

are going. It would be a long walk from the 
sleeping dead who rest 'neath the ancient grave- 
stones bordering lower Broadway, north side — a 
long distance from the tower of Trinity — nearer 
the brown-stone fi-onts of ease, fashion, and lux- 
ury — we dare not say comfort and contented hap- 
piness. 

The pretty waiter-girl saloon is an institution 
of magnitude in this city. By actual count of 
police officers, it is known that the number of 
such saloons in New York is two hundred and 
twenty-three ; while the number of girls — of 
course, all are pretty — is nearly two thousand. 

The one we are going to is the most fashion- 
able in Kew York. It is on that aristocratic line 
of travel known as Fifth avenue, and is entered 
on three streets. 

Down the broad and well-lighted stairs. !N"o 
danger of slipping, for the steps are kept cleaner 
than at the churches. Silently the door opens as 
we touch the knob — opened by a male waiter 



216 Pretty Waiter-girl Saloons, 

inside. Wliat a glare of light 1 How warm and 
comfortable ! One hmidred and sixty feet in 
width, two hmidred and thirty feet deep, is this 
palace of dissipation. The floors are of variega- 
ted marble, cut in diamond-surfaced blocks, and 
matched with all an artist's care. Here are 
billiard-tables a half dozen, but the players are 
few. Here are little round marble tables, where 
men sit playing draughts or dominos. Through 
the centre length of the room runs an opened 
wall. We look through the openings, and see, to 
the right, a crowd. Here are about sixty tables, 
and about forty pretty waiter-girls, so-called. 
The room is kept to a comfortable heat, while 
an air of languor pervades the apartment. We 
sit down — four of us — by a' round table, first 
carelessly nodding to a girl sauntering near. 
She joins our party. Would you see her ? 

Look, then. She is not yet twenty years of 
age, but is educated in full. She knows at a 
glance whether you are from the country — 



Pretty Waiter-girl Saloons. 217 

whether a man who has travelled — whether a 
sport, or business man residing in the city — and 
acts accordingly. She is good-looking, except 
that the wanton is lurking deep in her eyes. 
And in the matter of dress, no lady in the land 
excels her.- Rustling silk, with amplitude of 
crinoline ; her waist looks all that artist could 
wish ; her hair is dressed to the apex of fashion ; 
her fingers are covered with rings, and her per- 
son generally well ornamented. In the country 
she would captivate deacons, merchants, business 
men, and perhaps editors, were they easily 
caught. 

She sits easily down, with a pleasant, smiling 
" Good-evening, gentlemen." She addresses you 
by some familiar name, as " Little one," " Gen- 
eral," " Deacon," or " Darling," as she judges 
will best please. On her breast is a number — 
each girl is given a number-badge, as they come 
in at seven o'clock to enter upon the work of the 
evening. By these numbers their accoimts are 
10 



218 Pretty Waiter-girl Saloons. 

kept at the bar. We order drinks for the party 
— of course inviting one or more girls to join, as 
their looks strike the fancy. AVe pay large 
prices for all sorts of villanons compounds ; and, 
of course, our pretty waiter drinks with us. It 
may be that she takes a hot lemonade, a brandy 
punch, a gin cocktail, whiskey straight, port 
julep, hot whiskey, or glass of ale, as her taste 
calls for. She trips off to the bar — gives her 
orders. The glasses are set out to her. She 
gives from a pocketfrJ of checks, which iii the 
hands of the barkeeper are debit against her, and 
trips smilingly back with the fluid. She seats 
hei-self beside us. The glasses jingle — sides, 
" tops and bottoms," or table knocks — and we 
drink. Then comes a chat. Generally the girl 
gets the odd change. She gently lays her hand 
on your arm to whisper something, or to ask a 
(piestion. Her soft hand plays with 3^oui*s on the 
sly. She pulls imaginary splintei*s or chi].>s of 
tooth-picks from your whiskei*s, and " purrs " like 



Pretty Waiter -girl Saloons. 210 

a love-asking kitten. She is so affectionate, one 
cannot help feeling an interest in her. We ask, 
and she tells her history, as we sit a little apart 
from the rest. IIuo-o's fiction excelled ! " She 
is a young widow — poor, but honest parents. 
Husband killed in the army. Is forced to do 
this, or starve. She earns six dollars a week, and 
five per cent, on all nightly sales over twenty dol- 
lars." You wonder how she dresses so well on 
six dollars a week, when it costs nine for board ! 
Overchange sometimes, when gentlemen treat ! 
And the proprietor thinks much of her, and pays 
her extra wages! Or she is a young girl just 
from the country. Or she is a milliner, and her 
shop is busted, and she does this for a living. Of 
course, she is strictly virtuous. Yet — if there 
ever was a man — ^}'ou, who so resemble a dear 
friend somewhere, might be just the man — if — ■ 
and if — and if — oh, dear I And we all drink 
again. 

There are as many different styles of pretty 



220 Pretty Waiter-girl Saloons. 

girls here as there are waiters. Here is a queen 
of night — eyes and hair of raven blackness, 
dressed like a queen, beautiful and enticing. 
Beware there, conntrjinan ! She is more bean- 
tiful than the woman you love, perhaps ; but 
never mind. Another comes, dressed in mourn- 
ing. She has just lost a mother (or something 
else), and tells you a sorrowful tale, and, half- 
weeping, says Yes to any proposition, except to 
edit a daily paper ! And here comes a red- 
cheeked girl, dressed so prettily, with a natural 
rose in her hair — no jewelry, no display — that 
even a city sport is tempted to fall in love with 
the little minx. 

The saloon is filled with pretty girls, who are 
here from seven to half-past one every night." 
After the latter hour, time is their own. 

The saloon is fitted up regardless of cost. 
Marble tables — marble counters — full-length mir- 
rors — easy-chahs — brilliant lights — a large foun- 
tain playmg into a marble basin six feet across, 



Pretty Waiter-girl Saloons. 221 

filled with gold-fish — canary birds hanging in the 
evergreen branches, which form little screens oi' 
bowers in the corners of the room, or by some 
pillar where sits a gray-haired sinner, half -hidden 
from gaze of curious eyes, holding the hand of a 
pretty waiter-girl, who has him on a string, for 
sure ! In one corner of the room a piano sits, 
and at intervals a Polish, Hungarian, or German 
" professor " favors us with operatic or other airs. 
The room is warm — the blood gets hot — the 
pretty waiter-girls groT^ sociable as the small 
hours draw nigh. There is nothing to offend the 
most polite. Loud talking, profanity, and un- 
seemly conduct is not allowed. A police officer 
is always in the room, to preserve order and eject 
those who are too noisy. The proprietor walks 
about, seeing that all is well. The hours fly past. 
It is cold outside — comfortable here. We play a 
game of dominos, to see who pays the next 
drinks. Our girl trips off for a minute, to wait 
on somebody else. She returns smilingly, just as 



222 Pretty Waiter-girl Saloons, 

the game is finished, ready for another chat. 
She tells all her little troubles, and the history of 
every girl she dislikes who is present ; for pretty 
waiter-girls have their jealousies as well as other 
people. If you order drinks from another girl, 
she does not like it. She tells you her name, 
which is Anna, Emma, Katie, Frank, Belle, 
Sophia, Alice, Nellie, Carrie, or some such pet 
name. She invites you — that is, if she likes your 
style — to call at such a number on such a street, 
and visit — ^just for acquaintance' sake, you know ! 
Or, perhaps you would as soon walk or ride home 
with her when the saloon closes. Saloons do 
close in I^ew York I 

Being a stranger, with nothing to do, of couree 
you would not object to going just a little way 
with a pretty girl, to protect her from loafers, 
you know ! 

These girls have their regular customers, whose 
patronage is their capital. We have seen them 
go half-crazy with anger, when some regular 



Pretty WaiteT-girl Saloons. 223 

evening dropper-in at the saloon would give an 
order to some other girl who had never before 
waited on him. They fix up a man's coat-collar 
to keep his ears warm, go with him to the door, 
and say, " Come again ! — Call for ' Frank,' or 
^ Kate ! ' — Good-nio-lit ! " with such a winninir 
way, that a man thinks pretty waiter-girls and 
pretty waiter-girl saloons are great institutions. 

As a general thing, these girls are sharp. 
They know who to spend time talking with, and 
who not to. It is not eveiy one they will waste 
words with, of all the hundreds who nightly visit 
this place in particular. 

They are the Grisettes and Lorettes of Paris, 
only sharper and more mercenary. 

Most of the patrons of these institutions are 
strangers, and, of course, better paying customers 
than residents of the city. Men come and go. 
They become interested in the girls. They bring 
friends to these saloons, and swell the receipts to 
sums ranging from one to three hundred dollars 



224 Pretty Wcdter-girl Saloons. 

a night. Yon get anything, from ^vine to ice- 
water, from a raw oyster to a cold turkey — of 
course papng well for it. 

At half -past one the hour for closing aiTives. 
The crowd is thinned down to but few more than 
there are girls. One by one or two by two they 
go mated, if not matched. The saloon is still — 
the customers have taken their last drink — the 
girls have put on their things and gone, with or 
without an escort, as they were enticing or in 
luck — the police officer goes home — the bar- 
tenders take a " night-cap " drink — the cashier 
and proprietor figure up the receipts and lock up 
the cash — the girls' number- badges are strung 
ready for to-morrow night — first come, first num- 
bered — the gas is turned do^vn — the porter locks 
the doors and goes off to his room, perhaps a mile 
or more away — and the pretty waiter-girl saloon 
is closed till to-morrow night at seven o'clock, 
when all is light and " splendor " again. 

The influences of these saloons are evil — only 



Pretty Waiter-girl Saloons. 225 

evil continually. Men come here singly and in 
gronps — many but to see and extend their knowl- 
edge of human nature. Some come to drink ; 
some to chat with the girls, who are always striv- 
ing to please, and who have their fi'iends and 
admirers, whose coming is looked for each night. 
Men come here because they have the blues — to 
see the girls, and watch others. They, come and 
buy a drink — anything from lemonade to hot 
poison — or take a cold lunch, look about, and go 
home. 

The girls are generally all one thinks them to 
be. They receive low wages, but live by picking 
up flats. Clerks in stores, business men, stran- 
gers, and others, fall in love — what an insult to 
the word ! — make them presents, buy their smiles 
and favors, and, strange as it may seem, at times 
marry the inmates of these legalized concerns. 
They are of the selectness which sends disease 
far over the land, and would be abolished but for 
the influence they wield at the polls. The votes 
10* 



226 



Pretty Waiter-girl Saloons. 



of the Five Points, and such localities, are in a 
manner counteracted hy the " aristocracy " of 
politics which run the votes which cluster around 
such places. 





CHAPTER XXYII. 



TO A PRETTY LITTLE MAID. 




Y pretty little maid 

Whose gentle heart for love ia yeaming, 
Better be a wee afraid — 
And closer watch the coals a-buming ! 
Lovers talk of joy and sorrow, 

True to-night — and false to-morrow. 
Boys will talk of earnest loving. 
Men will dally in their roving. 
Some for one thing — some another, 
— Wed the one and love the other I 
My pretty little maid, 

Don't sit there listening 
When up and off to bed 

You had better be hastening 1 



My pretty little maid, 

Don't believe all the praising — 
All the words so smoothly said 

Till you've learned your lover's raising I 



228 To a Pretty Little Maid, 

Men will talk, ne'er believing, 
Happy when you maids deceiving. 

Men will vow, and then forgetting- 

Leave you to your vain regretting, 
Twenty court for your iindoing — 
One is earnest in his wooing. 

Darling little maid, 
You'd better be hastening 

Away to your bed,. 

And not there be listeninff I 







CIIAPTEE XXYIII. 



PUEIVir.LE BENEVOLENCE. 




E had a high old time in Piiritanville, 
or Puriville, as wo call it. The win- 
ter's snows all ran down the creek. 
Our New England hills sang with 
joy as the ice ripped and the water rippled on its 
grapevine-way to the deep blue sea. 

In all our scttlemeiiLt lives not a single, mar- 
ried, or double Democrat. We are all loyal in 
Puriville — and refined — and so Christian-like in 
disposition I We never jerk the last ogg from 
the nest — till the active pullet has tired of her 
eggs-periments, and gives up her cggs-ultation 



230 Puriville Benevolence. 

over our eggs-centrlcity of taking all we get, 
except tlie shells ! 

Eveiy Sunday our dear, pious divine, Eev. 
Ilezerky Dropcliin, preaches such soothing ser- 
mons at lis ! lie tells us that h-e and two ells 
is paved ninety feet deep with skulls of infants 
cemented in with the curses of the d-a-m-ned 
ones — and that the Lord loveth a cheerful giver 
— and that giving to the poor is investing with 
the Lord. And he says we must love our ene- 
mies — or we can't make a cent out of seventeen 
of them. 

He is a good man, is Rev. Ilezerky Dropchin, 
and preaches with most unctuous eclat. And we 
do just as he tells us to ; for why doctor yourself, 
when you buy his doctorin's ? 

One day, while the sprouts were sprouting, the 
buds were budding, the leaves leaving, and the 
grass grassing all over things generally, the bell 
rang a loud Christian-like rangle, calling us all to 
worship. Ours is a nice bell — it was conquered 



Purimile Benevolence. 231 

from a church-tower when oiir troops were on 
their Southern " tower," and now rings " Glory 
hallehijah " in the hands of a Northern jerkist. 
It is wicked to be proud, and God loves us in 
Puriville for confiscating all such articles of 
" bigotry and virtue " from the South, and recon- 
structing them Via the plan of roundhead salva- 
tion. And we have such nice carpets, and hymn- 
books, and a Bible, and that aristocratic solid 
silver communion service, all taken from the 
proud people of the South, who would have 
ended their days in much continuous toraient 
had we not taken their idols from them, and 
directed their eyes to the true and revealed 
Power. 

It is so sweet to save souls this way. And it's 
cheaper for us. And then, our churches will 
seem so homelike when visiting brethren and 
sisters visit us in our own prayer-warmed homes, 
to attend divine service with us ! 

The other day Brother Dropchin told us that 



233 Purimlle Benevolence. 

his dear cousin 'Zeldel had been Sonth. And 
such destitution he never saw. He went down 
with two thousand cheap pictures to sell to the 
innocent contrabandboxes of the South, but they 
had been supplied, and he only sold seven dam- 
aged " views " in all his trip ! And he had two 
thousand dollars' worth of brass jewelry, but the 
white men of the South had so outraged, robbed, 
and impoverished the negroes, that they — poor 
innocent architects of national cemeteries ! — had 
no spelter to shell out ; and so his jewelry gan- 
grened, and he returned with it in verdigris. 

Then, after a prayer and two songs, our be- 
loved pastor said we must do something for the 
poor people of the South, to let them know that 
we forgave them for their wickedness, and to 
win them back to a love for their benefactors, 
lie said they needed school-books, and old clothes, 
and reading-matter, and money, and encourage- 
ment. 

We all felt it our duty to aid in restoring these 



Puriville Benevolence. 233 

poor disfi*eclded sinners to their rights and re- 
ligion. So we appointed a committee to solicit 
aid for the poor half-whipped rebels, that they 
might know we love them. And everybody 
responded. Our people are so liberal 1 Indeed, 
God loves a cheerful giver ; and if the folks 
South do not love us, it ain't our fault. "Wje give 
them good advice, and good laws, to match the 
articles sent to them by our committee, C. O. D. ! 

Our committee did first-rate. In two days we 
raised twelve big boxesful of things for them, 
and sent them off. Deacon Gunner had them 
stored in his barn, four miles from the depot, 
and his son John hauled them to the cars for 
four dollars a box, advance charges paid, and 
forwarded for collection ! 

Then we had them repacked in new boxes — 
thirty-seven dollars, advance charges, forwarded 
for collection. And they all went on ma Os- 
wego, Cape May, St. Paul, La Crosse, Pittsburg, 
to St. Louis ; thence by ocean steamer to New 



234: Puriville Benevolence. 

Orleans, and up the river to Morrison, Illinois, 
and then by cars direct to the South. 

There were lots of things in the boxes the 
people of the South need. In one box were : 

Seventeen pairs of old, moldy boots, of 1818 — 
good as new. 

Twenty old hoop-skirts taken from the lanes 
and streets. 

One waterproof night-cap, raffled on the "back. 

Two old boot-jacks, split. 

!N'ine straw hats, averaging forty-one years old, 
selected from the cock-loft over the vv^agon 
houses. 

Another hoop-skirt — boy's size. Two umbrella 
covers, perforated. One claw-hammer, without 
teeth. Two dozen tracts on the Incalculable 
Horrors of Perpetual Damnation. One tin horn 
run over by a cart laden with stone. 

Twelve pill-boxes to hold garden-seeds. One 
red overcoat, without a tail. Two dozen shirts, 



Purimlle Benevolence. 235 

assorted sizes, minus flaps, arms, bosoms, buttons, 
or other wrinkles. 

Three pairs of second-hand stove-legs, good as 
new. 

Likeness of a bob-tailed cat — good to amuse 
Sunday-school children. One pair of curling- 
tongs, bent, and only a little rusty. 

Two dozen of them things you buy in pairs at 
a store, providing you need them. 

One flannel shirt for the baby to wear, in the 
sweet summer-time. 

One lot of carpet-bags, and loyal sneak-thieves 
to carry them. 

One dozen old socks, scalloped and assorted. 

One copy of a cook-book to stay their appe- 
tites. 

The other boxes were filled with like goods. 
And, now that we have done our duty, and shown 
to the people of the South how much we love 
them, we are happy and contented. 





CHAPTEE XXIX. 

WHAT I KNOW ABOUT FAEIkllNG. 

AM a pharmer. One of the olclen 
kind ! About ninety-five year olden 
kind. "Wlien yonnger than now, I 
had much to do with Weeds ! This 
fact makes me a pharmer. There is nothing 
about the science of pharming^ from sitting of a 
hot day under a rail-fence in company with a 
jug, to picking geese, that I do not feel justified 
in knowing. Picking geese is good. I have 
helped pluck many a goose — from the black 
Michi-ganders to the last Pepublican candidate 
for Governor in the State of New York. 

Observe the following rules about pharming 



Wliat I Know About Farming. 237 

the result of sixty years' subsoil ploughing to 
find the floor of the philosopher's office. These 
instructions, if not right, are according to copy- 
right, and will be useful to office-clerks, octo- 
genarians, and those who raise bees on a pole ; 
also to the poor of large cities, who should bor- 
row a few thousand dollars of their friends, go 
West, settle alongside of some railroad where the 
land has been properly Grant-ed to men who are 
willing to sell what cost them nothing, for fifty 
dollars an acre, including back taxes. 

In selecting land, great care should be taken 
to get bottom-lands — that is, lands with a bottom 
to them. It is just as easy to enter them, without 
the danger of going clear through. Hill-lands 
are apt to make pharming a one-sided affair, the 
price paid for such property, as a general thing, 
being a little steep. 

Stones and stumps are not essential to good 
farms, unless you have plenty of dogs, or intend 
to make speeches as the men are mowmg and 



238 ^Yhat 1 Know About Farming, 

maids a-milking while the dew is on their 
eye ! 

But to resume. 

Pharming is one of the fine arts discovered by 
the ancients of Ireland, under the green old sod. 
To be a pharmer, a man must be a pharmer 
whole or in part. The less he knows about it, 
the more he can write about it. Having a few 
spare moments, I bought of Carleton, the great 
book-maker of New York, ten copies of Greeley's 
" What is It 1 " on farming, and opened-up shop. 
I have read that book through nine times — twice 
backward, and once standing on my head ! 
Have mastered it at last, and condense in milder 
shape what I know about running the thing into 
the ground. 

Young man, be a farmer ! Young woman, 
be a farmer ! Buy a billiard-table, dust your 
clothes on the top of it, sprinkle on a little 
dandruff, and go to work. Never think of 
beginning with less than a field of green at least 



What I Know About Farming. 239 

» 

6x10. Spread your earth all over the billiard- 
table evenly, to the depth of one-sixteenth of an 
inch, irrigate with a sponge, and subsoil to the 
depth of ten feet. If you have no billiard-table, 
buy a piece of land, if you can't get a whole one, 
and go to work. 

The best way is to stand about in the shade, or 
hire out to hold a chair down in a saloon while 
the old man does the work. 

If your farm is stony, pick out the stones be- 
fore they are ripe and throw them in the road. 
This will cause others to McA-Dam-ize your 
street. Never think of ploughing less than nine 
feet, if your mule will pull it. If you have no 
team, wait till winter ; then drill and blast. 
This will pulverize the earth, elevate your land 
warm it, and you will be able to report before 
your slow neighbors. 

Run your creeks up-hill, and wash sheep only 
in warm water. 

Pick geese on Sunday, and sit the eggs 



24v0 What I Know About FaTming, 

on fence-posts, out of the way of garter- 
snakes. 

In turning grind-stone to educate scythes, never 
turn the handle backward, or the early grass will 
wilt before the color comes to it. 

Put a left-handed swivel in your scythe, so it 
will cut both ways. 

In selecting gooseberries, pick out the crook- 
neck variety and put them in the nest under the 
best goose in the drove by the middle of Octo- 
ber, that the goslings may be naturalized by the 
time for spring elections. 

In harvesting strawberries, be careful not to 
run the thresher too fast, or the straw will be 
spoilt for juleps, and only fit for beds. 

To cook string-beans, it is not necessary to par- 
boil the strmg in more than one suds. 

The best way to raise calves is to sit in a cane- 
seat chair and put your heels on the mantel-piece 
or a high table. 

When washing sheep, it is best to shear them 



Wliat I Know About Farming, 241 

first — less soap and fewer towels will be 
wanted. 

Eoosters should never be supplied with more 
than one comb a year, and this should be a horn 
one, tied about their necks so they will not lose 
them so easily; they will hatch up enough 
brushes. 

In raising catnip for children, the Maltese 
variety is the thing, as it comes up the best 
when called. 

In breaking colts, use a club ; it is better than 
a crowbar. A sled-stake will answer. 

Drive fence-posts with the butt-end down, so 
the boys won't want to sit on top of them when 
arguing so long without coming to the point. 

Butterflies should never be milked or churned 
the day they are slopped, lest the young milk 
be spoiled, l^one but the ice-cream cows should 
wear skates — ^the heel-cork sscratch the calves so. 

Hydraulic rams should be butchered before 
sunrise, and the pelts saved for company. 
11 



24:2 What 1 Know About Farming, 

Canary-seed should be sown* in drills, so tlie 
young birds will rows early. 

In planting string-beans, never nse yarn — when 
once in the throat it is so hard to come np. The 
same with artichokes or pips in chickens. 

Pitchforks should be sorted and packed in 
sugar, the juice boiled and skimmed before run- 
ning into cakes. 

Pumpkins should hang on the trees till fi'ost 
comes ; then should be picked, not shook off, and 
packed in sweet oil. 

In stuffing sausage, do not stuff too much into 
your stomach, or you'll have a feline in your 
category, and feel that you have incurred some- 
thing you hate to meat. 

Dandelions should be worked in pink rather 
than blue worsted — they will wash better. 

In putting up dried apples for market, let 
them lay out in the rain till the seeds start ; 
then run them backward through a fanning-mill 
set to seive No. 4^ with the slide well down in 



Wliat I Know About Farming. 243 

the hopper, while the hired girl turns the crank 
to the key of C-sharp. 

Ordinary shoes will do for oxen when at farm- 
work. Use slippers on them only when going to 
chm'ch. 

For succotash, the young corn and potatoes 
should be sliced and planted in the same hills 
the year before. Then take care not to injure 
the pods when the fruit is ready to tassle out. 

Old rags are better than glass to stop holes in 
windows — the neighbors cannot see in so well. 

Beach-nuts should never be eaten with their 
skins on — they change the complexion so. 

Young bed-quilts should never be taken out 
of the ground in the fall, till the beds have been 
well spaded for the next crop. 

In hatching suspenders, care must be taken 
that the old hen does not have her nest near the 
gallows, or the young birds will be hard to catch. 

Look out for Protection ! Let the bio- hog-s 
eat the little ones, then there will be more room 



24:4: What I Know About Farming. 

in the pen and less expense for barrels. But, in 
salting the pork, never nse rock-salt on a stony 
farm, but feed them with fine salt from a spoon, 
if Butler is not in that vicinity. Use Epsom 
salts exclusively for horses. 

ITever put spots on pigs backward, except they 
are for army use. 

Sweet corn is the best to corn beef, though old 
cows used to the business will eat the common 
red glaize, if the hired man does not yellow at 
them before they get into the garden. 

In making pork out of pig-iron, it is not neces- 
sary to fill the tub more than half -full of lime 
and straw, though hickory-ashes are the best. 

Use peach-leaves to color blonde, and this is 
all I know about farming. 

Furrowily thine, 

"B." P. 




CHAPTER XXX. 




"who's ben here since ish bin gone?" 

ILLFLICKER SOTCKSISTACKER, 
a Teutonic vender of sourkraut, 
wooden combs, crude cabbage, strip- 
ed mittens, cotton suspenders, and 
■'^ liddle dings," with true patriotic zeal, left his 
home in La Crosse at the commencement of the 
war, and enlisted as a slop grocery-keeper behind 
the sutler's tent on the Potomac. When he went 
away, it was with the intention of making some 
" monish," if it took all summer ; and nobly did 
he fight it out on his line. How he did it, is best 
told as he related it to us on his return : 

" You see, Mr. Bumroy, der drum beats, und 
der call cooms to go to war mit arms. Ish be 



246 " Who^s hin Here since Ish hin Gone ! " 

patriotic so miicli as Sheneral "Wasliburn, or Shen- 
eral Curtis, or Sheneral Bangs, or any tarn shen- 
eral who lifs to coom home great mans. So I 
puys some liddle dings, und gits some baj)ers 
from der War Committee, und goes mid der poys 
to be batriots, nnd sell some liddle dings imd 
make some monish. I kiss mein frow ^\q^ nine- 
teen dimes, nnd goes mit der war. I goes to 
Shambersbnrg und makes some monish. 'Yun 
day I pokes mein vindow out on mein head to hear 
der serenade, und dink of someding, ven I see 
dat rebel Sheneral Shtonefence Shackson, mit his 
droops und pig prass pand, cooming der shtreet 
down, playing like der tuyfel on der prass band, 

" ' Who's bin here since Ish bin gone ? ' 

" Dat Shtonefence Shackson is der tuyfel mit 
fightins ! So I puts mein monish in mein bocket, 
und I puts mein little bapers in mein pag, und I 
goes so quick as never vas to Gettysburg ; und 
dere I opens some more liddle dings, und makes 
shtore mit der army. Yun day I hears sojer- 
di'oops on der horsepack riding down der shtreet 
like dunder, und den I pokes der vindow out on 



" Who's hill Here sioice Ish hin Gone ! " 247 

mein head und looks meinself tip der shtreet, 
und der cooms dat tuyf el Sheneral Shtonef ence 
Shackson, playing dat same oder dune as I hear 
pefore, 

" ' Who's bin here since Ish bin gone ? ' 

" Den I makes mein monish coom inter mein 
bockets, und makes mein pag coom into mein 
bapers, und puts mein sign on der pig shtore on 
der corner, so I loses more goods as I had not 
got, to collect more pay from der War Commit- 
tee, und den I coom to Wisconsin to see mein 
f row, as I don't seen in dese two years, so long 
time as never vas. 

" Den I cooms home, und knocks on der door, 
und mein frow she makes talk, und tells me, 
' Who's dere?' 

"Den I say, ^Hilliiicker Snicksnacker ; ' und 
she knows dat ish mein name, 'cos dat ish her 
name, too, und she make herself coom out of der 
house, und gif me nine, seven times kiss on mein 
face, so good as never vas ! 

" Den, Mr. Bumroy, I looks mit mine eyes, 
und I sees somedings ! Und so I ask mein frow 



2i8 '^TT/io'^s hhi Here aince Is A hin Goiier^ 

if she pe true to me all der time since I go off 
to pe a batriot ? imd, if she pe true to her Hill- 
flicker Snicksuacker, vy she make so much grow 
yen I pe gone two yeai*s mit der war ? Und I 
gits mad as der tuvf el, und den I dinks of dat 
tam Sheneral Shtonefence Shackson und his pig 
brass band, und I sings, 

" * Who's bin here siuee Ish bin gone ? * 

*' Und now, Mi-. Bumrov, somebody makes 
trooble mit me, for Ish bin g-one two yeai*s, und 
I know somedings, und I goes pack mit der war, 
und I sinscs dat tam Shtonefence Shackson son^: 
all der vay, 

" * Who's bin here siuoe lah bm goue ? ' " 




CHAPTER XXXI. 

A JERSEY ATONEMENT. 

I'M like a rosebud snbdrowned in 
honey. Yea, in a newspaper mine 
optics beheld lines, saying — black 
ink on white paper, a contrast like 
Bnowflakes on a contrabandus — that 

'^ A ElCn WIDOW OF GENTLE DIS- 

/V position wants some one to love — wari'^s 
to marry a congenial gentleman not over 
sixty, with a desire to improvement. Address, 
&c." 




Just my age to a duck's foot ! Rather ambigu- 
ous, but means well, sayeth I to I. Desire to 
improvement was good. Slow work for a man 
of sixty to greatly improve a woman, unless she 
11* 



250 A Jersey Atonement. 

be well down tlie steel-yard of years. I went. 
Quiet home — charming widow. Had seen forty 
winters somewhere — know not where. Handed 
her the paper with the delicious advertisement 
therein, like a raisin in a kettle of beans. She 
smiled over her fan. She scooched her head 
gently, thus. She gently bit her upper lip, and 
prayed — that is, prayed me to be seated. I was 
fi'esh from the districts of ruralism. I had hoed 
the calves, milked the bees, fed the growing pota- 
toes, built sweet cider, and quenched my thirst 
with rail-fences, and was just the canary for the 
blooming widow's perch. 

I sat in the spontaneous deliciousness of the 
affectionate intercourse of that enthusiastic ex- 
plorer of masculine hearts ^^iQ> hours that night. 
I was like a humming-bird in a fanning-mill. I 
squozed the widow ; the widow squizzened me. 
I leaned my thinking-box against her maternal 
instincts, and looked into her eyes as a burglar 
looks around a corner. And all I saw was love. 
Says I, " Shall we ? " Says she, " Shan't we ? " 
We went to a minister. Five dollars, and all 
was over. 



A Jersey Atonement. 251 

How I revelled ! Sixty years of bachelor days 
in N'ew Jersey had fleetened over my head and 
things. I was a freshman. I was a icicle, wait- 
ing for the sun of love to thaw me out. She 
thawed me ! We began to live. I tried to im- 
prove the widow. I spent all my evenings in 
improving her. She improved. We were wed- 
dened in Aj)ril — April the onest. With the vigor 
of a Spring chronticleer did I prove my devotion. 
Like the first violet of vernal did I watch our 
<&rc. increase. One day, when I came home to 
our cot in the mill, I saw spread out on the floor 
a fourteen-year-old lump of ragged boy. 'Twas 
ragged Pete, of the Newsboy Brigade. He was 
on a lark. He'd been sloshing about, and had 
become hilarious. He showed surface indications 
of being drunk. I wanted to know why he 
earnest thus upon us. He said he wanted the old 
woman to give him half a horse. That was 
Pete's idea of a $5 bill ! The cherubim was the 
child of my adored ! I gave him the lucre. He 
went. I wanted to caress him with the toe of 
my boot, but he looked too detrimental. I spoke 
gently to my wife about Pete. She said she 



252 A Jersey Atonement, 

meant to tell me tliat slie had a cherub, but when 
&he saw me, I was so enticing' she forgot it ! She 
said I made her forget it. Pretty compliment, 
wasn't it ? I told her that her Peter mustn't be 
a re-peter, or I'd peter. She said five dollars a 
week would keep him away. I told her I was 
just in from the country, &c., etc. ; but she did 
five-dollars me, and I saw no more of Peter. 
She said she had atoned for all that. Who could 
doubt her ? We went on smoothly. 

One day, when I came home, two half-breeds 
were on the family bed, playing with a shaggy- 
eyed dog. The half-breeds were brothers. They 
were twins. They were of eleven years' dura- 
tion so far. They were in the boot-black busi- 
ness at Washington Market, and lived in a dry- 
goods box there. They had dark features, and a 
peculiar kink to their capillary. They called my 
consort "Mother." She had bore them. They 
bored me. Words failed to relieve me. I spoke 
of Pete. She said these were her other heavenly 
blessings I I asked if these had been atoned for. 
She said No. I felt better, for, if they had, I 
should have looked for four of an age, and al] 



A Jersey Atonement. 253 

f oiu' clear black ! I settled five dollars a week 

on the young Washingtons, and was again happy. 

* * * « « * 

This is the record of June. I've been a father 
for a week. Says I, Bully for New Jersey ! 
Was married April first, l^ever knew an in- 
stance where improvement went on so rapidly. 
Age tells ; blood is nothing. And such a baby ! 
It's a pretty baby. Will be a man, if it grows 
up. It was like a newspaper that is well read. 
It has the strabismus. It has red hair. I have 
written to my father to know if I had red hair. 
Mine is like the driven over snow. Have written 
to my original doctor, who I used to term a cow- 
catcher, to know if I had the cross-eyed when 
first borned. Am waiting for a reply. Wife 
says it is because we live at the forks of the road, 
opposite the red barn. She may be right. I 
hope she is right I If I had been ninety years 
old, we should have had this help to our census a 
month ago. That is, on this principle. I have 
given up business. The loving disposition is 
proving too much for me. I sold my steers, 
corn-stalks, and cow-pastm^e. I sold them that 



254 A Jersey Atonement, 

I miglit be here continually to improve the 
widow. 

Now look at me ! I'm clad in a pea-green 
dressing-gown. It is four o'clock in the morn- 
ing. I have been walking the floor three hours. 
. This cherub asleep in my arms is our baby. 0%ir 
first haby ! That is to say, on my part. It is 
our last atonement. I like baby. It's better 
than lobster-salad. It's a vigorous baby. It 
never sleeps. I feed it on paregoric, and such 
stimulants. I am its nurse. It eats from a bot- 
tle. I walk the floor with it. It don't seem to 
like me. It yells as if its father had been an 
auctioneer. I never auctioneered. It kicks as if 
its paternal derivative had at some time of life 
been a yackass. I never was a yackass ! It 
squalls as if its philoprogenitor had been a storm 
at sea. I never was one of them. Its mother is 
of a loving, gentle disposition. She loves gin, 
and, after drinking two bottles full, or empty, 
becomes gentle. She is gentle now ! I have 
tied the cherub's legs together with a piece of 
wire, so he can't kick ; I've put a court-plaster 
over his mouth, so he can't squall ; I've tied a 



A Jersey Atonement. 255 

strip of paling to his back, so he can't squirm ; 
and sit down to write how this affair is culminat- 
ing. I've got Pete and the two " atonements " 
out of the way. I've got a sure thing on the 
widow, while the gin holds out. And I've got a 
tight thing on our cherub, if the court-plaster 
don't burst. So now I'll let him sleep in my 
arms, lying like an infant on its father's lap while 
I wi'ite. Egad ! I've got 'em all tight, and now 
to my letter. I feel a little dry ; will take some 
ice-water, and go to work. 

* -x- -K- * * * 

Don't answer advertisements inserted by loving 
widows. I have tried it, and, after a few weeks 
of 

Confound that young one — how it perspires ! 
Guess I won't finish this article till I've tried on 
those new pants, for they may not fit, and I may 
have to send them back for alterations ! 



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